Using What We Know to Build a Local Economic Mobility Plan

A Quick Guide to Results for America’s Economic Mobility Catalog

By Maia Jachimowicz and Ross Tilchin

The race to approve COVID vaccines this year has highlighted the critical importance of rigorously testing medical interventions through clinical trials, helping us understand the benefits as well as any side effects before they are broadly administered to the public.

This same principle holds for social policy. Without tracking the performance of various public policies and programs and evaluating their impact, governments may be investing in costly initiatives that have little to no effect or, even worse, cause harm.

The need for evidence-driven policy intervention is particularly acute with regard to addressing the extreme inequity across American society, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is clear that government policies and systems — whether intentional or not — have played a role in worsening inequity. But well-designed, evidence-driven government efforts can help reverse this trend, and expand opportunity for those who need it most.

That’s why Results for America has created the Economic Mobility Catalog — a one-stop resource to help local governments identify and implement strategies proven to increase upward economic mobility. The purpose of this resource is to help local leaders find evidence-based strategies tailored to their most pressing challenges, draw connections between the ways that various policy areas influence long-term economic mobility, and make a research-based case for the importance of interventions at every stage of an individual’s life.

How can the Economic Mobility Catalog help local leaders advance strategies to improve upward economic mobility in their communities?

• First, the Catalog can help local leaders define the outcomes that matter most to pressing economic mobility challenges. After conducting surveys, in-depth interviews and requesting feedback from nearly a hundred local government leaders, we learned that many are seeking guidance on where to begin when developing a comprehensive, local economic mobility strategy. To assist local leaders in this process, the Economic Mobility Catalog is organized using a framework that identifies the seven specific outcome areas that research has shown to most powerfully strengthen upward economic mobility. This outcomes framework, drawn from the work of the Strive Together Network and the Urban Institute, provides local leaders with a starting point in deliberations over how to prioritize their work.
• Second, the Catalog can help local leaders identify the right complement of approaches to improve economic mobility outcomes. Local leaders are often searching for information on what specific programs or policies work. Yet they also know that no single local intervention or strategy can provide the support required to sustainably, meaningfully improve economic mobility for all residents over the long-term. The Catalog is designed to help local leaders identify mutually reinforcing strategies that support the most relevant policy outcomes they seek to address and give users a sense of how interventions in every policy area might interact to deliver results.
• Third, the Catalog can help local leaders make a research-based case for investing in specific interventions at every life stage. Local leaders have articulated to us that one meaningful barrier to change is a lack of readily available and relevant evidence and research clearly indicating why it makes sense to disrupt the status quo. In addition, local leaders note that it’s often considered a political non-starter to invest in preventative programming whose impact will not be seen for years or decades to come. Because interventions to improve long-term economic mobility outcomes seldom demonstrate immediate “returns,” it can be easy for decision makers focused on the shorter-term to undervalue their importance. The Economic Mobility Catalog seeks to help local leaders make their case for interventions for every outcome, presenting users with research findings that demonstrate the importance of and interlinkages between good outcomes at every life stage.
• Fourth, the Catalog points local leaders towards policies, strategies, and programs that are proven to have a positive impact on economic mobility. Over the years, thousands of approaches to social challenges have been implemented and evaluated. Some of these strategies have proven effective; many have not. Every additional dollar spent on an ineffective approach is one less dollar devoted to strategies that produce good outcomes. Rather than each local leader individually spending the time to research these findings, the Catalog identifies a large representative sample of those policies and strategies that have the best evidence. This doesn’t mean that local leaders shouldn’t still test new approaches to advance economic mobility, but their investments should be guided by what has already been tried and tested.
• Fifth, the Catalog can help local leaders understand the ways that evidence-based strategies are successfully implemented in specific communities across the country. Any local practitioner knows that even the most brilliant, evidence-based model will not be effective if implemented poorly. Pushing the work forward locally requires an understanding of the nuances of effective implementation. To assist local leaders, the Catalog provides case studies focused on the implementation of evidence-based programs. Local leaders have told us that the best case studies are those that detail the steps in the process and the timeline for implementation, including the specific details of how a topic even made it to the attention of local leaders for investment. These details are the focus of the Catalog’s case studies. While nothing can take the place of talking with program staff, these case studies help local leaders begin to understand whether a strategy might be ripe for them to consider adopting locally.

Are there other ways you are using the Catalog? We want to know. Please contact us at economicmobility@results4america.org to share more.

Results for America’s Economic Mobility Catalog is a dynamic resource. New programs and policies as well as implementation case studies will be added as research on what works to improve local mobility outcomes continues to grow.

Maia Jachimowicz is Vice President for Evidence-Based Policy Implementation at Results for America.

Ross Tilchin is the Associate Director of Strategy and Impact at Results for America.