About MDRC
Yang joined MDRC in 2008, and her work has focused on interventions that aim to improve long-term employment for low-income families. She is the data manager for the Paycheck Plus replication project in Atlanta (a simulation of an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income single workers with no dependent children) and for the Chicago New Communities Program evaluation (which studies how community groups in Chicago collaborate to improve their neighborhoods). She also works on evaluating Opportunity NYC, which uses short-term conditional cash transfers to boost poor families’ health, education, and employment. Previously, she was the technical leader on Project Rise, a Social Innovation Fund program that provided young adults who were neither working nor in school with paid internships and mandatory classes in the hopes of improving their long-term outcomes in education and work. Before joining MDRC, Yang directed WorkUp, a nonprofit organization that helps young adults build assets and achieve social mobility, and worked at SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning, where she managed evaluation projects on educational technology in K-12 schools. Yang holds a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University.
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MDRC Publications
Final Results from the Family Self-Sufficiency Study in New York City
September, 2017FSS provides case management services and a long-term escrow-savings account to housing-assisted families; an enhanced version also offered short-term cash work incentives. Six-year results of the random assignment evaluation show few significant effects overall for either program. However, the enhanced program increased employment and earnings for participants not working at enrollment.
Findings from Family Rewards 2.0
September, 2016A program in Memphis and the Bronx offered cash incentives, coupled with family guidance, to poor families for meeting certain health care, education, and work milestones. The program increased income and reduced poverty, increased dental visits and health status, reduced employment somewhat, and had few effects on students’ education.
Findings from the Project Rise Implementation Evaluation
October, 2015Project Rise offers education, a paid internship, and case management to young adults who lack a high school credential and have been out of work and school for at least six months. Participants, who were attracted more by the educational instruction than by the internship, substantially engaged with the program.
Interim Findings from the Work Rewards Demonstration in New York City
June, 2015This report presents four-year findings from a test of three interventions: the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program, FSS plus cash work incentives, and cash work incentives alone. FSS+incentives improved employment and earnings among participants who were not working at study entry, but none of the interventions had impacts for participants overall.
The Continuing Story of the Opportunity NYC−Family Rewards Demonstration
September, 2013Family Rewards, a three-year demonstration, provided cash payments to low-income families in New York City for achieving specific health, education, and employment goals. New results show that the program substantially reduced poverty and material hardship while it operated and had positive results in improving some education, health, and work-related outcomes.
Early Findings from a Program for Housing Voucher Recipients in New York City
December, 2012Opportunity NYC–Work Rewards is testing three ways of increasing work among families receiving housing vouchers — services and a savings plan under the federal Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program, the FSS program plus cash incentives for sustained full-time work, and the cash incentives alone. Early results suggest intriguing positive findings for certain subgroups.
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Other Publications
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Projects
James A. Riccio, Nadine Dechausay, Cynthia Miller, Stephen Nuñez, Nandita Verma, Edith Yang, Jared Smith, Gilda Azurdia, David M. Greenberg, Donna Wharton-Fields, Victoria Deitch, Anne WarrenFamily Rewards was an innovative approach to poverty reduction in the United States that was modeled on the conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs common in lower- and middle-income countries.
Cynthia Miller, Dan Bloom, Gilda Azurdia, Caroline Schultz, Nikki Ortolani, Edith Yang, Alexandra Bernardi, Paul VeldmanThe New York City Center for Economic Opportunity has selected MDRC and its partners to implement and evaluate a pilot program to simulate an expanded EITC in New York City for low-income single workers without dependent children, with the goal of increasing employment and earnings and reducing poverty.
In the United States, over six million young people are “disconnected” — neither in school nor working. Over a million of these disconnected young adults are between the ages of 18 and 24 years but lack either a high school diploma or equivalency certificate.
David M. Greenberg, James A. Riccio, Nandita Verma, Stephen Nuñez, M. Victoria Quiroz-Becerra, Aurelia De La Rosa Aceves, Nikki Ortolani, Edith Yang, Audrey Yu, Sarah SchellCan community-led efforts improve outcomes for residents at the neighborhood level? This is a critical question for policy and practice. For over a decade, The John D. and Catherine T.
James A. Riccio, Gilda Azurdia, Nadine Dechausay, Nandita Verma, Donna Wharton-Fields, Cynthia Miller, Victoria Deitch, Jared Smith, Edith Yang, David M. Greenberg, Betsy L. Tessler, Stephen Nuñez, Nikki Ortolani, Audrey Yu, Paul VeldmanIn March 2007, former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his intention to test a set of antipoverty initiatives, called Opportunity NYC, that would use temporary cash payments to poor families to boost their income in the short term, while building their ability to avoid longer-term and second-generation poverty.
James A. Riccio, Gayle Hamilton, Gilda Azurdia, Nadine Dechausay, Edith Yang, Donna Wharton-Fields, Nandita Verma, Caroline Schultz, Jocelyn Page, Frieda Molina, Cynthia Miller, Richard Hendra, David M. Greenberg, Barbara S. Goldman, Stephen Freedman, Victoria Deitch, Jared Smith, Mark van Dok, Natasha Piatnitskaia, Sharon Rowser, Betsy L. Tessler, Stephanie RubinoThe Social Innovation Fund (SIF), an initiative enacted under the Edward M.