An economic evaluation of the training and technology program, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1966-1970

Training and Technology (TAT), a skill development program at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, has been training people for entry level skills since 1966. This study utilized data collected by TAT in 1972. The surveyed covered 472 graduates who were trained between 1966 and 1971, from areas as diverse as rural Appalachia and Chicago. This study compared the trainees according to whether they had rural or urban backgrounds; their sociodemographic characteristics; attitudes toward work, coworkers, and mobility; and post-training experiences including income. Initially, tabular comparisons were made. In the second portion of the analysis, multiple regression was utilized to examine the effect of (1) rural or urban background and (2) training year on hourly wage. Hourly wage was used as a proxy for income because virtually all trainees worked 40 hours per week and tenure on the job was unknown. Variables which were controlled in the analysis were age, education, training area, number of jobs since training, employment status prior to entering training, training year, years since training, and rural and urban background. Hourly wage was the independent variable. Regressions were run for the total group and each individual training year. The regressions were run twice, once including and then excluding the rural and urban background variables. Regressions were then run for the rural and urban groups separately. Findings in the tabulated profiles showed that rural trainees were, on the average, older, the rural trainees were nearly all white while half of the urban trainees were nonwhite, and more rural trainees had graduated from high school but fewer had gone to college. Rural trainees had fewer post-training adjustment problems but did experience greater difficulty in adapting to shift work. In other characteristics the trainees were quite similar. The regression findings indicated consistently that being male, white, employed at entry to training and holding a training related job contributed positively to wages. These and the other independent variables included in the analysis explained a higher percent of the variation in wages of the rural trainees than they did of urban trainees' wages. However, there appeared to be little overall difference between the rural and urban groups in their wage success and the effects of various background characteristics on these wages.