Empowering Economic Self-Sufficiency: A Community-Based Approach to Enhancing Psychosocial Well-Being Among Low-Income Job Seekers

Background and Purpose: Economic self-sufficiency (ESS) has been a focal goal of federal and state social policy, yet its measurement often neglects the psychosocial dimension to its attainment. This oversight underscores the necessity of considering psychosocial well-being as a foundational element preceding ESS. Embracing a human-centered ecology of work perspective, Psychological Self-Sufficiency (PSS) prioritizes empowerment-based approaches for low-income jobseekers, drawing from community-based participatory action research within urban African American communities. Within this context, the Transforming Impossible into Possible (TIP) program emerged as a PSS-centric employment support program. Therefore, this study examined the impact of TIP on PSS and ESS.

Methods: Data were collected from 333 individuals engaged in the TIP program across multiple community-based agencies between 2017 and 2021. Predominantly comprising African American low-income job seekers, participants were surveyed before (time 1) and after (time 2) program participation. PSS refers to the psychological strength to transform employment barriers (EB) into employment hope (EH), comprising a 20-item EB scale with five categories (physical & mental health, labor market exclusion, childcare, human capital, and personal balance) and a 14-item EH scale with four categories (psychological empowerment, utilization of skills & resources, futuristic self-motivation, and goal orientation). ESS was assessed using the 15-item WEN ESS scale with four categories (autonomy & self-determination, financial security & responsibility, family & self well-being, and basic assets for living in the community). Socio-demographic variables included age, race, gender, marital status, education, overall health, presence of children under 18, and welfare benefit receipt. First, bivariate analyses provided differences in EB, EH, and ESS pre- and post-TIP participation. Subsequently, latent profile analysis identified subgroups based on EB and EH scores, followed by multiple linear regressions to predict ESS by latent profile groups and socio-demographic variables at both time points.

Results: Bivariate analyses revealed increased scores in the child care barrier category and ESS categories of autonomy & self-determination, financial security & responsibility, and family & self well-being, alongside decreased scores across all EB categories. Latent profile analysis yielded two subgroups: 1) high barriers and low hope, 2) low barriers and high hope. Regression analysis at time 1 (all ps < .05) indicated significant associations between ESS and age (β = .01), health (β = .18), single household status (β = .32), and welfare benefit receipt (β = - .47), while latent groups showed no such association. At time 2, ESS was significantly associated with health (β = .25), single household status (β = .46), welfare benefit receipt (β = - .39), with Group 2 exhibiting higher ESS (β = .54).

Conclusions and Implications: The study underscores the TIP program's effectiveness in enhancing PSS, the transformative path from EB to EH, and its positive correlation with ESS. This highlights the importance of integrating the PSS development processes into social work services and policies, particularly within federal and local workforce development programs at community-based agencies. Furthermore, marginalized job seekers based on race and income require additional support for health and living circumstances to bolster ESS alongside participation in programs like TIP.