City Jobs

Founded as an innovative response to 1996 federal welfare reform legislation, the Los Angeles City Jobs program is a job training and placement program that transitions people living in poverty and the hardest-to-employ into City jobs with livable wages and career advancement opportunities.

In 1996, national welfare-to-work legislation was passed through The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).This legislation repealed the 60-year social safety net for the poor and created a "work-first" strategy, relying on the private sector to address poverty.

Recognizing that this legislation would have a devastating affect on our communities, The Los Angeles Metropolitan Alliance, a partnership between SCOPE, other community-based organizations and labor unions, created a replicable public sector employment model that would allocate welfare-to-work funds to a program that would reduce poverty through quality training and good jobs.

The City Jobs program made significant strides in reducing the number of people living in poverty, instead of increasing poverty through "work first" strategies that place welfare recipients into "any" job, regardless of its wages or career opportunities.

The City Jobs Program is heralded as a model job training and placement program that:

• Benefitted both city departments and low-income residents
• Placed women of color in non-traditional jobs
• Led to institutional changes and broader participation in city programs
• Cost less to train at-risk populations than incarcerate
• Created a regional precedent

To read more about the City Jobs Program, download our report.

Links to articles and press releases on the City Jobs Program:

"Job Program Hailed as Model for Others." By Rick Orlov. Daily News,             April 06,2000.

"Extienden Programa de Empleos de la Ciudad." By Marilú Meza. La Opnión,     April 06, 2000.

"Welfare to work that works." By Jackie Goldberg. Jackie Goldberg News.