The challenge of measuring success: Barriers to quantifying workforce development outcomes

Workforce development is not one size fits all. Each community, each individual, has a different set of circumstances that require varying supports in search of the same goal: a life-sustaining job. 

At Pathways to Housing PA, the Work First program has supported a small cohort of individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness for the last decade. Instead of focusing on resume writing and interview skills, Work First focused on more intangible skills like navigating conflict with co-workers, the importance of arriving on time, and how to advocate for yourself in the workplace. 

That program is now indefinitely on pause, because of a shift in priorities by a major funder. 

Closing the program has been difficult for Pathways to Housing PA staff, who have seen first-hand the way those soft skills translate to real financial opportunity for people who might not otherwise secure employment. It brings up an essential question: who ultimately determines whether a program is working? Are funders, government, nonprofits working together to identify priorities and outcome measures? 

Basic skills, like problem-solving, initiative, and ability to work in a team are necessary to maintain employment. Without them, many folks would continue to be unemployed. But there’s not an easy way to quantify “program participants can now communicate effectively with coworkers” as an outcome that can be included in a grant report to a funder.

Outcome tracking is not the only barrier to success for workforce development nonprofits. Dan Rhoton, Executive Director of Hopeworks, highlighted the struggle Hopeworks often faces as an organization that has consistent outcomes: funders want to fund new, innovative programming and don’t want to invest in proven results. He has found that many funders do not focus on long-term outcomes such as sustained employment, and rather focus on credentials or the number of graduates of a particular program. 

Hopeworks’ mission is to propel young adults into long-term living wage careers that put them on the path for healing and financial stability with a focus on skill development, real-world job experience, and trauma-informed care and operations in Camden, Kensington, and Newark. While not new or unprecedented, Hopeworks has a 93% 12-month retention rate and has paid nearly $2 million in stipends and wages to young adults in the last 12 months. 

Despite the challenge Hopeworks has run into, at least one funder in the region is moving away from looking for program participants being placed in a job as the only outcome. 

The Philadelphia Foundation is one of the country’s first publicly supported community foundations and the largest devoted to improving lives in Greater Philadelphia. Philip Fitzgerald, Chief Impact Officer shared that a recent shift in grant strategy led to a strong focus on economic mobility. 

“Our definition of economic mobility is increasing access to careers with family sustaining wages and benefits, reducing barriers that make it hard for families to stay stable, and supporting education and training that lead to real opportunity. Our goal is to make sure that we are supporting organizations and programs that make sure that participants are engaged in a thoughtful way, are supported throughout their training, and then tracked long term. We really want to make sure that wages increase, training and skills increase so that program participants have the opportunity to move to another role in the organization or move to another job. That’s when you start actually seeing mobility.”

Soneyet Muhammad, Chief of Programs at Episcopal Community Services (ECS), talked about that same shift from the nonprofit side. ECS’s mission is to challenge and reduce intergenerational poverty by increasing the ability of people to improve their lives and achieve economic independence, and their services cover the Greater Philadelphia area. 

Soneyet shared that “An entry-level job will not cure a family’s poverty experience. However, a job can stoke hope. It can inspire more success. ECS’ economic mobility coaching program, MindSet, can layer workforce providers’ training so Philadelphians build beyond entry-level opportunities. ECS can support residents as they build skills and – equally important – leverage available cross-functional resources to derisk career advancement. Our transformation programs and services are designed for the long haul because our practice affirms the research: economic stability engenders economic mobility.” 

The City’s Initiatives

image above, 6/4/2026 Budget Update Press Conference, Copyright City of Philadelphia. Photograph by Quinton Davis

From the government perspective, economic mobility is taking hold as well. Mayor Parker’s FY27 Budget includes several key initiatives to “help Philadelphians access jobs, build skills, and achieve financial stability.” Initiatives include: 

• Establishing a new Economic Mobility Cabinet to coordinate strategy across City departments.  
• Investing $15 million over five years to create 1,000 new Career Connected Learning opportunities for youth.  
• Allocating $10 million in FY27 for workforce development programs.  
• Providing $14 million over five years for financial counseling and empowerment services, aligned with the H.O.M.E. Initiative.  
• Prioritizing support for small and local businesses to drive inclusive economic growth. 

While there seems to be alignment that a job alone is not enough to lift someone out of poverty, tens of millions of dollars are invested each year into workforce development programming in Philadelphia designed to get people into jobs. Has it made any difference? 

The city’s poverty rate remains among the highest of any large U.S. city. Sure, the poverty rate in Philadelphia has dropped below 20% for the first time since 1979 – but the way we measure poverty is based on 1963 dollars. The calculation doesn’t include things like college education, cell phones, wifi, or the cost of living significantly outpacing wage growth. The poverty rate alone doesn’t tell the whole story or reflect the reality, which is that more than half of Philadelphia households are living paycheck to paycheck, and have been for more than a decade. 

The Inquirer reported that “In 2025, 44.3% of full-time workers made a living wage in the 11-county region, which includes Wilmington and Camden. That’s a decline from 2021, when 54.7% full-time workers in the region made a living wage, according to Dayforce. During that same time frame, the poverty rate was slowly improving in Philadelphia.” 

The workforce development playbook is designed for funders, training programs, and state and local government initiatives to work together to connect people with in-demand jobs in growing industries. If that were working as intended, the number of full-time workers making a living wage would go up, not down. 

As stated earlier, there’s also funding for workforce development (the City College for Municipal Employment, an initiative launched by Mayor Parker as part of the five year plan to Make Philadelphia Safer, Cleaner, Greener, with Access to Economic Opportunity for All) often doesn’t address or support the soft skills needed to truly thrive. Nonprofits are left to find creative ways to provide a comprehensive training program that supports both soft and hard skills – or just focus on one area, like the Work First program at Pathways to Housing PA’s focus on soft skills. 

Another wrench in the system is the Pennsylvania minimum wage. The minimum wage has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2009 and is tied for lowest in the nation. The same $7.25 from 2009 would have a purchasing power of $11.25 in 2026 – nowhere near our nearest neighbors. 

To put that into perspective: a single adult working full-time (40 hours/week) at $7.25 per hour earns roughly $15,080 annually, which is below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) of $15,960. For a single parent with one child, the FPL is $21,640. It would require 58 hours of work per week at minimum wage to remain above the FPL for a single parent of one child – and don’t forget, the FPL calculation does not include childcare costs. 

Another initiative announced by Mayor Parker as part of her five-year plan is nearly $20 million in new operating investments for economic opportunity, including an accelerator fund and capital growth fund. Our friends at Technica.ly have already looked into the entrepreneurship boom and discovered that more people are indeed starting businesses, but fewer of those businesses are becoming employers. Investing in entrepreneurship is resulting in more business owners, not more jobs. 

New shifts  impacting old problems

Even if the old system worked perfectly, there are new wrenches being thrown every day. The economy is shifting thanks to AI and the changing nature of work: classic early-stage jobs are starting to wither. The workforce has to be more flexible and adaptable than ever before as technological advances are causing industries to shift at a much faster rate. As the kinds of jobs available quickly evolve, traditional workforce development programs may leave people with skills that aren’t marketable or end up as dead ends.

There is at least one organization leaning into the positives of AI. Dan Rhoton described how Hopeworks is shifting their training strategy to help their participants understand how to use AI to their advantage. Hopeworks sees AI as an accelerator that compensates for participant skill gaps and creates new placement opportunities, and Dan has observed growing employer demand for workers who combine trade skills with basic digital competencies. 

The Federal Reserve Bank conducted a Survey of Economic Mobility from December 2023 to August 2024, and questioned respondents about economic well-being and navigating decisions around work and life styles. The study suggested that many respondents faced barriers to work due to caregiving responsibilities, health, or transportation access, as well as training/experience requirements. 

The study points to another challenge to ensuring workforce development programming’s success: job training isn’t the only barrier to Philadelphians finding and keeping jobs. There are other factors that affect the success of workforce development that aren’t always taken into account when designing and funding programming. 

What is success?

The question remains; which stakeholder designs outcomes and ultimately determines whether workforce development programming is successful? 

It depends on how you look at it. Nonprofits are stuck between a rock and a hard place: they want to provide the services needed by those they serve, but they also have to adhere to the priorities and outcomes prescribed by the private and government funders who make those services possible. 

Both private and government funders can be slow to catch up to the needs of the community. They’re larger entities that require more research and more data from the organizations they fund and communities they serve to make strategic shifts in priorities. Those shifts can take months, or even years, to enact – which leave them perpetually behind the on-the-ground needs of any given day. 

The industry shift from workforce development to economic mobility is a positive step, and will lead to more nuanced outcomes being developed by both nonprofits and funders to gain a better sense of impact across the board. It will not, however, affect the greater issue: how do all of the stakeholders for this particular problem work together to be nimble and address the barriers to employment, not just the logistics of finding a job?

###