About MDRC
Williams is a research associate in the Low-Wage Workers and Communities policy area in MDRC’s New York office. Since joining MDRC in April 2008, she has provided technical and analytical support to several projects, including the Subsidized and Transitional Employment Demonstration and Employment Retention and Advancement projects for low-wage workers, the Accelerated Benefits Demonstration for Social Security Disability Insurance recipients, and the New Communities Program in Chicago. Prior to joining MDRC, Sonya was an economist for the state of North Carolina, providing labor-market analysis to support workforce and economic development projects. She has a master’s degree in sociology from Cornell University.
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MDRC Publications
Implementation and Early Impacts of the Young Adult Internship Program
April, 2017This report presents implementation and early impact results from a random assignment evaluation of the Young Adult Internship Program (YAIP), a subsidized employment program for young people in New York City who are disconnected from school and work. YAIP boosted earnings for participants, which suggests that they obtained better jobs.
Implementation and Early Impacts of the Los Angeles County Transitional Subsidized Employment Program
November, 2016This report presents implementation findings and interim impact results (after one year) from a random assignment evaluation of subsidized employment for recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in Los Angeles County. The study examines the impact of two distinct approaches to subsidized employment.
The Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration
November, 2016This demonstration is testing seven enhanced transitional jobs programs that offer temporary, subsidized jobs and comprehensive support to people recently released from prison and unemployed parents behind in child support payments.
Ten Years of Chicago’s New Communities Program
August, 2014A 10-year, $50-million initiative, the New Communities Program supported community organizations in 14 Chicago neighborhoods to convene local partners to carry out varied improvement activities, from safety to education and affordable housing. This report describes NCP’s successes and challenges and the implications of its experience for federal and local community development programs.
An Analysis of the Interaction among Quality-of-Life Indicators from the New Communities Program Evaluation
June, 2012This paper explores analytic methods that assess the rate at which changes in neighborhood quality of life occur. It looks at correlations among quality indicators over time and the effect of both neighborhood context and conditions beyond the neighborhood, like the Great Recession, identifying which indicators are predictors of others.
November, 2010This report from the national Employment Retention and Advancement Project demonstrates that low-income single-parent and two-parent families have a roughly equivalent need for services to support employment retention and advancement and that this need does not differ substantially between men and women in two-parent families.
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Other Publications
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Projects
The Accelerated Benefits Demonstration tested whether making medical benefits immediately available to new Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries would improve their health and increase the likelihood they would return to work. SSDI pays cash benefits to eligible workers who are disabled.
Gayle Hamilton, Richard Hendra, Cynthia Miller, Susan Scrivener, Stephen Freedman, Frieda Molina, Jocelyn Page, David Navarro, Barbara S. Goldman, Dan Bloom, John Martinez, Mark van Dok, Victoria Deitch, Sonya Williams, Alexandra Pennington, Erika LundquistThe federal welfare overhaul of 1996 ushered in myriad policy changes aimed at getting low-income parents off public assistance and into employment.