\n<\/aside>\nDustin Petrey said in a lawsuit that he suffered a life-changing injury after EmployBridge subsidiary ResourceMFG failed to train him for work at a Tennessee plastics factory. In an interview, he said he was vacuuming debris from a hopper outside the plant in 2014 when a coworker flipped a switch inside. Before the 19-year-old could comprehend what had happened, an auger had severed his right arm. Petrey said he\u2019d passed a simple safety test at the temp agency, but that he\u2019d never received on-the-job training \u2014 or even heard of \u201clockout, tag-out,\u201d a standard safety protocol for securing machinery.<\/p>\n
Larissa Overfield said that during her 14 months with EmployBridge subsidiary EmploymentPlus in Kentucky, two coworkers at the auto parts factory where she worked repeatedly asked her for sex, according to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint and federal lawsuit. She said the men touched intimate parts of her body and threw things on the floor and told her to pick them up. Eventually, Overfield told a temp agency supervisor what was happening. The next day, she said, she was fired. When Overfield asked for another placement, the agency told her it didn\u2019t have any other work available. \u201cThey completely turned their backs on me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
EmployBridge declined to comment. The company denied Overfield\u2019s allegations in court. She said she received a settlement and her case was dismissed. EmployBridge was dismissed from Petrey\u2019s lawsuit because it was already paying him workers\u2019 comp benefits for his injury. Malara of the American Staffing Association said health and safety are a priority. \u201cOver the past eight years,\u201d he said, \u201cASA and our members have worked with federal stakeholders to ensure the increased safety of temporary and contract workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
A common argument for temp agencies\u2019 participation in the WOTC program is that temp jobs will act as stepping stones to permanent employment. But according to many economists, such outcomes are the exception. \u201cThere\u2019s no evidence to support the idea that temp work is leading to lots of direct-hire jobs,\u201d said David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n
In the early 2000s, Autor and economist Susan Houseman analyzed a trove of data on the employment outcomes of Detroit welfare recipients who had been assigned to either temp agency jobs or \u201cdirect-hire\u201d jobs, meaning positions where workers are hired by the company they report to rather than through a temp agency. The researchers found that temp jobs failed to improve outcomes and may even have resulted in lower earnings in the long term. \u201cThese results cast doubt on whether the widespread use of temporary-help agencies by government programs is a sound public investment,\u201d the economists concluded.<\/p>\n
In studies published from 2003 to 2011, Hamersma of Syracuse found that jobs subsidized by the WOTC typically lasted only nine months and that temp jobs were even shorter. While she concluded the WOTC may boost welfare and food stamp recipients\u2019 earnings initially, she said, \u201cI didn\u2019t find evidence it helped them get or keep jobs in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n
One possible reason: Many companies rely on outside firms to process the credits, and managers at temp agencies and retailers told ProPublica they weren\u2019t aware which workers were eligible when making hiring decisions.<\/p>\n
That \u201cactually makes it a terrible incentive, because nobody\u2019s responding to it,\u201d Autor said. It\u2019s like hiring someone and then getting a notification from the IRS saying, \u201c\u2018Oh, congratulations, he\u2019s a felon. Here\u2019s your 2,400 bucks.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Congress paid little attention to Hamersma\u2019s research, but staffing agencies and tax credit processing companies succeeded in circulating papers heralding the credit among lawmakers. Two papers written by Peter Cappelli, a prominent business professor at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Wharton School, said the WOTC was \u201cnot a windfall\u201d for employers and estimated the credits provide a substantial return on investment for taxpayers. What the industry representatives didn\u2019t disclose was that the papers were unpublished and had been paid for by lobbyists.<\/p>\n
Cappelli said the attorney who offered to pay for his research didn\u2019t say who was funding it or what it would be used for. If he were to redo the report, Cappelli said, he would make some changes, but he stood by the reports on the whole. \u201cThe questions that we\u2019re asking here are about estimating the value of WOTC,\u201d he said. \u201cThese things are not so simple to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the decade since, Congress has voted to extend the tax credit four times.<\/p>\n
\n Reinforcing Barriers One of the main problems with the WOTC, its critics say, is that it doesn\u2019t address the many forces that create barriers for marginalized workers.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nDeMond Bush is exactly the kind of person the WOTC was designed to help. He survived abuse as a child, became homeless at 14 and started selling drugs as a teenager. Then in 1995, when he was 21, a jury convicted him of robbery, kidnapping and manslaughter. Another Black man had been convicted in the high-profile murder of a white librarian in Frankfort, Kentucky, and prosecutors argued that Bush had helped him. Witnesses said they\u2019d seen the men together in the days following the killing, jailhouse informants testified that Bush confessed to them and \u2014 in the time before DNA testing \u2014 a hair found in the victim\u2019s car was determined to match Bush\u2019s hair using forensic methods now considered inaccurate.<\/p>\n\n\n When Bush got out of prison, he hoped that his carpentry credentials would help him land a construction job. But despite the WOTC, he couldn\u2019t find permanent work for several years. He\u2019s now working a union construction job that he landed with the help of someone he met through a reentry program.<\/span><\/p>\n Credit: <\/span>Bush insists he was in another city when the crime occurred and maintains his innocence, noting that the primary suspect in the case, who initially alleged that Bush was involved, has since retracted his statement. And over the more than 21 years Bush spent in Kentucky prisons, he earned three associate\u2019s degrees in arts, science and skilled trades, a diploma from a seminary and two certificates in carpentry from a community college. He hoped that, when he got out, the carpentry training might help him land a union job.<\/p>\n
Instead, Bush found himself picking up union workers\u2019 trash. A day-labor agency had sent him to a sports arena to clean up after a union event.<\/p>\n
Each day, Bush spent hours waiting at the agency for a chance to earn $9 to $10 an hour performing manual labor. The seats smelled like urine, he recalled, and cold air blew in through a hole in the door where a doorknob should have been.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeggars can\u2019t be choosy,\u201d Bush said. \u201cAnd they know that, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
After more than two decades behind bars, Bush said he needed a lot more than a job. He needed housing, mental health services and time to adjust. But all he had access to were temp jobs. \u201cYou got to eat immediately,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel like there were any other options for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Workers with criminal records who spoke with ProPublica listed dozens of reasons that temp jobs were their first and often only jobs after leaving prison. While failed background checks and the need for food and rent were common themes, longstanding criminal justice policies were often equally powerful factors.<\/p>\n
Workers required to live at halfway houses said strict curfews ruled out the night shift at nearby factories and warehouses \u2014 often the only decent-paying direct-hire jobs available to them.<\/p>\n
For most workers, employment was a condition of their parole. One parole office in New Hampshire provided ProPublica with a list of employers it gives to people. The first nine employers were temp agencies.<\/p>\n
Workers also described owing court fines, parole fees or restitution. Some said the disruption caused by midweek parole meetings cost them jobs with conventional employers.<\/p>\n
The rules governing federal grants to organizations that serve formerly incarcerated people also promote temp work. To receive federal grants for employment services, reentry nonprofits must show high job-placement rates. Because they needn\u2019t specify whether those jobs are permanent positions or if they include benefits, some advocates say, nonprofits rely on temp agencies to keep their numbers up.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nThe U.S. Employment Service, a federal program that provides assistance to job seekers at centers across the country, once prohibited counselors from referring workers to employment agencies. But today its website tells people with felony records that \u201cemployment agencies can be a good path to a job\u201d and recommends that applicants print out a brochure about the WOTC to present to employers.<\/p>\n
Temp agencies, meanwhile, sometimes deter their client companies from hiring workers directly, charging penalty fees if companies want to bring someone on before their contract ends \u2014 and sometimes for up to a year after the contract expires.<\/p>\n
For Courtney Decker, a 30-year-old Louisville resident whose battle with addiction led to stints behind bars, there was yet another reason she felt she had no choice but to take temp work. Because her mother had custody of Decker\u2019s daughter, Decker owed child support. In Kentucky, missing just a few months of payments is a jailable offense. \u201cIf I did not pay my child support, I would have ended up getting locked up again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n Courtney Decker said she worked a series of temp jobs, never landing a permanent job despite promises that she would be hired.<\/span><\/p>\n Credit: <\/span>As a child, Decker had wanted to be a police officer, like the one who let her pick out candy from the trunk of the cruiser he parked in her neighborhood. She was a junior ROTC cadet in high school and planned to join the Army. She dreamed of a career helping people and an income that would provide more than the instant ramen noodles with chopped hot dogs she and her four younger siblings ate while their single mom was at work.<\/p>\n
Instead, Decker spent her 20s bouncing between prison and short-term jobs, grabbing hold of sobriety and then turning back to drugs and alcohol. Decker longed for a stable, full-time job \u2014 something that would allow her to pay for her own apartment and help support her young daughter.<\/p>\n
Instead, Decker said, she woke up each morning on a friend\u2019s couch, laced up her steel-toe boots and made her way in the predawn darkness to the same day-labor agency Bush had used. \u201cYou\u2019d have to get there at like 4 in the morning,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you was late, you didn\u2019t get assigned anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
But none of the temp jobs led to lasting employment. Once, Decker said, a temp agency sent her to a nearby warehouse with the promise of a permanent job and benefits after 90 days. But the job ended the same way Bush\u2019s did. After two months, Decker said, the company ran a background check and told her she could stay on as a temp but couldn\u2019t become a permanent employee.<\/p>\n
Soon after, Decker relapsed, her probation was revoked and she returned to prison. Despite the outcome, the temp agency was still eligible to collect tax credits for Decker\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense that they\u2019re getting this tax credit and it\u2019s not going towards full-time employment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n More Than \u201cWorker Bees\u201d Bush and Decker had little in common before leaving prison. Yet after they were released, their journeys were remarkably similar. Both were attracted by temp agencies\u2019 promises of permanent employment only to have their hopes dashed. Both draw a direct line between that disappointment and their return to prison. And both credit a nonprofit \u2014 not the private sector \u2014 with giving them a second chance.<\/p>\n
After Bush left prison at the end of 2019, he vowed he\u2019d never go back to a temp agency. This time, he found his way to a reentry services program run by Goodwill Industries of Kentucky. Bush enrolled in a class there, then landed a full-time job with the nonprofit, coaching men and women like him. \u201cIt drastically changed my life,\u201d he said. It gave him newfound confidence and, eventually, a contact he made through Goodwill helped him get union construction work, earning more than $20 an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n Bush said it was a nonprofit, not temp agencies, that first offered him stable employment.<\/span><\/p>\n Credit: <\/span>Likewise, Decker\u2019s path after prison led her to Goodwill, which helped her find sober housing and gave her bus vouchers. Then, a career coach connected her with a full-time job directing traffic around construction. She stayed in that job for two years. The work was dependable and paid enough for Decker to move into her own apartment and start thinking about what she really wanted in a career: to help people like her. She applied for a job as a peer-support specialist at Goodwill.<\/p>\n
Decker said Goodwill\u2019s program is effective because the only roles that it considers to be acceptable placements are direct-hire jobs with benefits, an unusual policy among similar providers. If taxpayers are going to subsidize jobs for people like her, Decker said, these are the standards that employers receiving the WOTC should have to meet.<\/p>\n