We use new tools for building the middle class. We build a bridge to economic security through research, policy, and media work. Community Jobs is the first and largest program in the nation to provide welfare recipients with paychecks for their work in the public and private nonprofit sectors. Participants step onto a job ladder that leads to economic self-sufficiency and steady employment.
Participants begin a structured plan toward a living wage and independence from welfare.
Community Jobs is an open door for its participants, leading to increased family income, greater self-esteem, new skills, and new opportunities. Program participants, who have had major difficulties in securing employment on their own, work in CJ up to nine months, long enough to gain substantial work experience. While developing their own work and life skills, CJ participants improve their communities by working in community, government, and tribal organizations. CJ relies on local innovation to achieve its goals. OTED contracts with 17 local nonprofit consortia that develop jobs in government, nonprofit, and tribal organizations, employ CJ participants to work in those jobs, and provide them with intensive support services.