TO: Veronica White, Executive Director

FROM: Yekaterina Balba, Program Evaluator

Executive Summary: New York City has 1.5 million people living in poverty. Like many other
cities around the nation, New York City is actively implementing various poverty reduction
programs. Since 2006, the Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) has become an innovation
lab where poverty reduction programs are tested and evaluated through a rigorous evidence-
based approach. Evaluating new and innovative programs is essential to reducing the number of
people living in poverty in New York City.

Background: CEO is assigned with various roles including providing oversight, administering
funding, and executing an evaluation. The Center has placed great emphasis on monitoring and
evaluating various city programs. By using performance measurements CEO is able to identify
promising programs. Promising programs are used as a guide to establish best practices and
improve public services. In addition, the analysis of various programs helps CEO to direct
funding towards the most impactful programs as a way to effectively distribute the annual budget
of $100 million.
In U.S., research shows that most households living below the poverty line are led by
single females who identify as African American or Hispanic. Many of them are unemployed or
unable to advance on the economic ladder. The Center has made it a priority to serve working
poor adults, young adults 16 to 24, and families with children aged 5 or below with their
programs. Through various collaborations with city agencies, departments, and community
partners CEO has helped to pivot programmatic directions towards more effective and targeted
practices. The program evaluation recommendations are specific to five programs, they include
Family Rewards, CUNY-ASAP, Teen ACTION, Jobs-Plus and Employment Work. The
recommendations address the overall aim and help realize the goals and the mission of CEO.

Options:
The Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards program is structured around conditional cash
transfer. The program provides cash payments to low-income families under certain conditions.
Family Rewards targets income eligible households in identified neighborhoods with children in
4th-9th grade. The 22 different types of incentives ranging from $20 to $600 are derived from
three categories of options focusing on education, health, and workforce development. The
theory behind this program is based on motivating behavioral change within family through
conditional rewards. Although the Family Rewards program technically is not a program of
CEO, it is extremely relevant to the mission of the Center. The performance of the program will
potentially help to guide the future of social services in the U.S. Although, the program model
has shown a positive impact in Mexico; positive results have not been replicated in other places.
There are multiple questions that an evaluation of this program should answer. The first
question addresses whether monetary incentive changes behavior? And, the second is if the
change in health, education and workforce variables correlate to the reduction of poverty? Both
of these questions address the Program Theory/Design and the Impact of the program. Existing
data like the quarterly reports produced by the providers are helpful in determining how well the
program has met the demands of the target population. Similarly, the quarterly report and the
narratives can help to shed light on the impact of the program based on outcomes achieved.
Concerns around the implementation have been raised by staff who have noted the difficulty in
recruitment and ability to explain the program process. A focus group is recommended to gather
feedback on how to improve the process. Ideally, a random assignment should be used to
evaluate the program, but due to limited funds, it is not feasible to invest in evaluating of an
external program at this time. Without a random assignment, it is possible to overlook other
factors contributing to poverty outside of health, education, and workforce.
City University of New York-Accelerated Study in Associated Programs (CUNY-ASAP)
is a program that targets low-income and immigrant students enrolled in community colleges.
The theory of change guiding this program assumes that this population needs extensive support
to earn their degrees in a timely manner. CUNY-ASAP provides tuition waivers, financial
assistance, free books, and free metro cards. In addition, a student is supported through regular
meeting with advisors, employment specialist, as well as tutors. Nevertheless, the program
requirements include full-time enrollment each semester and is limited to a select set of majors
(health and hospitality) or a pathway to transfer into a university.
For this program evaluation, it is important to answer the question of whether the support
provided equates to higher timely graduation rates for low-income and immigrant students. An
Impact Evaluation can help to establish that connection and measure the effect. Existing data like
the quarterly reports produced by the providers will allow CEO to measure the impact. Similar to
Family Rewards, concerns have been raised that the program was ramped up too fast without
creating any infrastructure or process for confidentiality and data sharing. Thus, a Process
Evaluation is recommended. By conducting a focus group CEO can gather participant’s response
to their experience within the program.
Teen ACTION is an after-school service learning program that aims to reduce risky
behavior and increase community engagement, teamwork, and problem-solving skills in young
adolescents. The main assumption behind the program’s theory is that teens living in poverty are
more likely to become pregnant and remain unmarried. Interventions provided by the staff are
important to combat risky behavior at a critical point in life to end the generational poverty
cycle. The program has a strong foundation based on proven models implemented around the
country. In its first year, the program served 3000 young adults from 60 different sites.
For this program evaluation, it is important to answer the question of whether the
program reduces teen pregnancies and poverty. Program Theory/Design and Impact evaluation
are recommended. A survey will enable CEO to gain information not available to school
administration and not reported in quarterly reports. The survey sample size is approximately
1000 students as to maintain a 95% confidence level with 2.5 confidence interval. Budgeting
should account for a higher cost due to the nature of the population and the difficulty of
conducting interviews and various permission levels. Similar to Family Rewards, it is ideal to
conduct a random assignment evaluation to account for other factors contributing to teen
pregnancy and generational poverty.
The Jobs-Plus program directs employment services towards residents in public housing.
Residents receive employment and training services and other incentives. The program has a
long history of both implementation and evaluation. Previous evaluations measured the impact
by analyzing long-term earnings trends before and after the program with a 7 year follow up
period. For this program evaluation, it is important to answer the question of whether the
intervention of services helps individuals living in public housing increase their income. Impact
evaluation can be accomplished by using existing quarterly reports. Additionally, information
gathered at move-in and annual recertification can be used to evaluate the impact of the program.
Officials have emphasized the benefit of implementing this program as an evaluation tool
within itself. The program is viewed as a likely environment for evaluation. The random
selection of buildings, the contrast, and comparison of those receiving services are relevant to the
experimental approach. However, the scale is much different in New York City, and for the first
year, the program was piloted only in a single building. The tradeoffs here involve losing
generalization ability. If there are changes in this population, it can be argued to only be
applicable to this specific housing development. It would be difficult to replicate a similar
environment across the larger metropolitan area. Thus, a survey is recommended to evaluate the
conduct an Impact evaluation.
Employment Works is a smaller scale program with an annual budget of $1.75 million.
Nevertheless, the program has a large-scale potential. The overall objective is to reduce the rate
of recidivism. The theory guiding this program is that those who are employed are less likely to
commit a crime and return to jail. As a way to ensure success, the program provides education,
training, and support services. New York City has approximately 30,000 individuals on
probation each year and half of them are unemployed. If proven successful in NYC, as it has
around the U.S., the model has a potential for a large impact.
The evaluation of this program has to answer the question of whether the services are
reducing the recidivism rate. Accordingly, a Program Theory/Design and Impact evaluation are
recommended. The quarterly reports produced by the providers can use to reveal how well the
program has met the demands of the target population based on the outcome achieved. In
addition, the goal of the program is to have each participant maintain a job for at least one year
with $9 an hour or better pay. A focus group is beneficial to determine the needs of the
population. There is a potential that the goal of the program does not align with what will prevent
a person from returning to jail. A focus group could yield very important information regarding
the challenges this population faces when attempting to gain employment. Additionally, the
focus group can help gather missing information about job history.

Recommendation:
As an innovation lab of social programming CEO has to commit to advancing innovative
ideas. By adopting the new calculation to measure poverty CEO has made it clear that it is
willing to take on the large issues. Equally, CEO has to adhere to the commitment of targeting
working poor adults, young adults, and families with children. The recommendations above have
taken the goals and budget into consideration when proposing evaluation tools and methods.
Furthermore, a general recommendation is to continue monitoring all programs as it is essential
across the board. Monitoring helps to determine who is accessing and receiving the services and
how the funds are used, pieces of information relevant to all programs.

Family Rewards Focus Group; $10,000-$20,000