News and Publications

Metis Associates Evaluates Anti-Poverty Programs of the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity

In April 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced major progress in the city’s anti-poverty strategy advanced under the Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO). Of 40 new CEO initiatives launched to fight poverty, several of them have shown considerable success. Based on its extensive experience conducting evaluations for city agencies, Metis Associates was chosen to be one of four independent research firms engaged to assess the impact of these programs. Together with its partner, Westat, Metis has thus far provided a combination of technical assistance and in-depth assessments of the implementation and early outcomes for 16 of them. Summaries of these 16 evaluations are featured in CEO’s second annual report, “Center for Economic Opportunity: Early Achievements and Lessons Learned” (January 2009). The full report is available on the CEO’s website.

“A central tenet of the Center for Economic Opportunity is the need for independent and rigorous evaluation of the programs that the center develops,” said Stanley Schneider, president of Metis Associates. “Mayor Bloomberg is one of a select group of courageous politicians who are willing to examine programs closely and end those that are not working,”

In addition to developing and evaluating anti-poverty programs, CEO has developed a new model for measuring poverty, making New York “the nation’s first local government to refigure the Federal government’s heavily-criticized 40-year old poverty measure,” according to CEO. The new measure is based on recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences designed to account for geographic variation in cost of living and the real value of government interventions. 

For Metis Associates, this prominent foray into anti-poverty work brings together some of the longstanding themes of its work, such as workforce development, youth development, and family economic support. Some of CEO’s most successful programs are helping move parents into stable careers and out of poverty, helping low-income families build assets, enrolling young people in GED programs, and identifying people who are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The Center for Economic Opportunity was established by Mayor Bloomberg in 2006 to implement innovative ways to reduce poverty in New York City.  It seeks an evidence-based approach to poverty alleviation, and all of the programs of the initiative are subject to rigorous analyses, including evaluations that compare beneficiaries of these programs to control groups of non-beneficiaries. Metis is an enthusiastic partner in this important endeavor.