Just Scraping By
One in four working families in America—home to 20 million children—earned less than twice the official poverty level in 2002.
Millions of families are stuck in life’s proverbial rat race—working hard yet going nowhere while struggling to pay the bills. Enter the Annie E. Casey Foundation, with nearly a decade of workforce development success under its belt and innumerable lessons to share. This fact sheet, devoted to rebuilding the country’s broken career ladders, is one installment in a 10-part series that highlights how the Foundation is helping to economically empower families across America.
The Foundation’s ambitious Jobs Initiative, launched in 1995, funded and evaluated intensive workforce development efforts in six cities across the country. At each of these sites, community organizations and partner agencies offered young workers a mix of job readiness training, targeted skills training and post-employment support. The goal? Help these participants stay employed and—even better—climb the career ladder.
