DescriptionThis thesis evaluates the impact of New Jersey's Individual Training Grant (ITG) program on participants. Through non-experimental matching methods, we find ITG participants experience a higher reemployment rate than their comparison group in the 8th, 12th, and 16th quarters after claiming Unemployment Insurance (UI). The reemployment advantage in the 8th quarter is about 6% and 5% in the 16th quarter. The wage recovery of the ITG group is statistically indistinguishable from the comparison group's wage recovery in the 16th quarter. However, the combined reemployment and wage return for ITG participants amounts to $474 in the 8th quarter after claiming UI (approximately 9.5% of 8th quarter wages). Applying this economic return, the lifetime monetary returns to training exceed the cost in foregone wages by the 5th year after claiming UI.
The thesis also estimates impacts for demographic groups that face a variety of barriers to employment, such as weak education and job skills, and access to networks. The specific groups are high school drop outs, females pursuing training in the male dominated fields of computer programming and engineering, and older workers who may have out dated skills or face age discrimination. Female enrolled in engineering or computer programming experience reemployment rates that are lower than or similar to those in the comparison group, but they do experience a $758 greater quarterly wage recovery in the 8th quarter after claiming UI. Hispanic high school dropouts experience both higher reemployment and wage recovery rates than their comparison group, but the wage recovery advantage disappears after removing those enrolled in truck driving training.
High school dropouts previously employed in manufacturing and white males age 51 to 65 experience a reemployment advantage in the 8th quarter after UI relative to seven comparison groups, each obtained by a different matching model. For both ITG subgroups the reemployment rate is 7-8 percentage points higher than their comparison group. However, there is no significant difference between the wage recovery rates of either ITG group and their comparison groups. Using multiple matching methods we demonstrate that these results are robust to the matching model. We find that both propensity score matching and stratified random sampling can be sensitive to ties, which illustrates the importance of using multiple matching methods.