• Mothers with young children on welfare and in subsidized child care were twice as likely to find sustained employment if they had a driver's license. For this population, having a driver's license was more important for finding steady work than a high school diploma.

• Many Milwaukee teens are unlikely to be employed full-time as adults due to non-driving suspensions they received as juveniles.

• Minorities are most likely to have driver's license problems related to fine collections. Those who continue to drive to work with suspended licenses often are stopped for minor vehicle ("driving while poor") or traffic infractions only to be cited for driving under suspension or revocation -- far more serious offenses.

One of the most promising workforce initiatives in Milwaukee is the Center for Driver's License Recovery and Employability, established in March 2007 to increase the number of licensed driver's among Milwaukee County's low income populations. The CDLRE provides driver's license recovery assistance to county residents aged 18 and above, with suspended and revoked driver's licenses, income at 200% of poverty or below, and having no pending Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) offenses. Major partners in the program include Wisconsin Community Services, Legal Action of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Area Technical College, and the Municipal Court of Milwaukee. The Employment and Training Institute has conducted three assessments of the CDLRE program.

• Third Year Evaluation of the Center for Driver's License Recovery & Employability (2010) found continuing high license recovery success rates (57% for the three-year period) even though the client population served in 2009 had more difficult challenges (i.e., more clients without employment, more referrals from the corrections and court systems, and more clients with multiple legal problems). Clients were referred to the program from a network of City of Milwaukee, social services, employment services, legal, court, and corrections agencies and faced problems in over 100 different municipal and circuit courts. (The largest number of cases -- 2/3 of the total -- were in Milwaukee municipal court.) The program is housed in the Milwaukee Area Technical College whose students also use the program. All clients are low-income and 92% are minorities.

• Second Year Evaluation of the Center for Driver's License Recovery & Employability (2008) tracked earnings of clients completing case management services in 2007 and found early gains of $759 per quarter ($253 a month) for women obtaining their driving privileges. Women successfully obtaining their driving privileges showed a 64% increase in earnings in First Quarter 2008 (compared to First Quarter 2007), while women not obtaining their driving privileges showed only 4% gains. Improvements were also seen in the unemployment rate among successful CDLRE male clients (dropping from 58% to 54%) and in the percentages of men earning at least full-time minimum wages. However, men's history of prior state incarceration was a stronger predictor of their First Quarter 2008 earnings than either their level of schooling or driver's license attainment. Over a fourth of male clients served by the CDLRE had records of incarceration in state correctional facilities, and 58% of these men obtained their driving privileges.

  The low-income residents seeking assistance from the CDLRE faced a daunting array of obstacles for restoration of their driving privileges. They owed $782,815 in outstanding fines and had 4,140 cases involving 60 different municipal and circuit court systems. From January to July 2008, 60% of CDLRE clients obtained their driving privileges, even higher than the 51% success rate reported for 2007. License recovery rates reached 70% for clients referred by employment service agencies and for clients who received legal services as part of their case management (the most difficult cases).

  The problem of low-income residents, and particularly younger workers, driving without a license has serious negative consequences for the courts and was reflected in lower earnings reported for clients prior to their entry into the CDLRE program. Two-thirds of the teen clients (and 52% of clients in their 20s) had suspensions and revocations (many initially due to failure to pay fines unrelated to driving, such as curfew violations, jaywalking, underage drinking) but no driver's license. Wisconsin discontinued state support for driver's education in the high schools a number of years ago. Youth under age 18 are required to enroll in a certified driver education program (most at their own expense), and high school dropouts under age 18 are not eligible for a Wisconsin license under current rules. As of April 2008, an estimated 11,855 City of Milwaukee teens ages 16 and 17 did not have a driver's license or learning permit, and almost half of these teens lived in inner city neighborhoods.

• Assessment of 2007 Client Outcomes for the Center for Driver's License Recovery & Employability (2008) reviewed the first year of operation and found high success rates in clients obtaining license privileges. All clients were low-income, 96% faced financial fines or court costs. 93% were minorities, and 2/3 were males (the group most impacted by driver's license concerns). The largest group served were African American males.

  The emphasis of the CDLRE services model is on personal responsibility with clients expected to redress their licensing problems. Clients are provided advice on the steps required to restore or obtain their driving privileges and offered tools needed to maintain a clear license in the future. Case managers and legal staff provide training to clients on how to work through the court systems, identify deadlines and action steps required, and monitor each client's progress. One important feature of the CDLRE program is developing supervised community service alternatives for clients unable to meet the financial costs of outstanding fines and fees. Nearly half of the clients coming to the CDLRE perform community service work to help pay their outstanding fines.

A number of additional Employment and Training Institute reports have analyzed transportation barriers to employment for Milwaukee workers.

The EARN (Early Assessment and Retention Network) Model for Effectively Targeting WIA and TANF Resources to Participants (2007) recommends a data-driven service delivery system for Milwaukee with early detection of barriers to employment prior to delivery of services and for targeting post-exit services to those identified as high-risk. Post-program wage data on WIA participants with less than 12 years of education showed that those with a valid driver's license were four times more likely to show earnings above the poverty level, compared to those without a current license.

The Driver License Status of the Voting Age Population in Wisconsin, (2005) provides a first-time analysis of the driver's license issues based on the race and ethnicity of drivers and unlicensed adults in Wisconsin. Less than half (47%) of Milwaukee County African American adults and 43% of Hispanics adults have a valid driver's license compared to 85% of white adults in the balance of Wisconsin outside of Milwaukee County. For young adults ages 18-24, only 26% of African Americans and 34% of Hispanics in Milwaukee County have a valid driver's license, compared to 71% of young white adults in the Balance of the State.

Barriers to Employment: Prison Time (2007) found that only 7% of Milwaukee County residents released from state correctional facilities showed evidence of a valid driver's license with no recent suspensions or revocations. The study recommends that the City of Milwaukee and the Department of Corrections cooperate to help address driver's license problems prior to release.

Removing Transportation Barriers to Employment: The Impact of Driver's License Suspension Policies on Milwaukee County Teens (2000) identified 9,046 Milwaukee County teens (ages 16-18) with suspended licenses, with 87% of the suspensions solely for failure to pay fines.

Removing Transportation Barriers to Employment: Assessing Driver's License and Vehicle Ownership Patterns of Low-Income Populations (1998), showed 116,857 Milwaukee County adults (ages 18-55) with suspension orders. More suspension orders were issued for failure to pay municipal fines than for driving while intoxicated, traffic-related violations, and drug convictions combined.

Driver's License Recommendations: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board

The use of the driver's license in Milwaukee as punishments for not paying fines (and leading to thousands of license suspensions) was the subject of a community discussion convened on June 11, 2007 by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board. The discussion included Tyrone Dumas of the Milwaukee Public Schools; James Gramling, former Milwaukee municipal judge; Herman John of the Milwaukee Bar Association; and John Pawasarat, director of the Employment and Training Institute. Following this session, the editorial board launched an occasional series on "No License: A Roadblock to Work" and issued recommendations for improving the current situation where thousands of Milwaukee County workers have suspended or revoked licenses.

The editorial board recommended the following. (See the January 19, 2008 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial for the rationale for each recommendation.)

1. The state (Governor Jim Doyle and the Wisconsin Legislature) should "opt out of a federal law that requires at least a six-month suspension of driver's licenses for all drug offenses."

2. The state should "require the courts to grant indigent or low-income defendants reasonable installment payment plans in lieu of the automatic suspension of their licenses."

3. The state should allow state courts to "sentence indigent defendants to community service in non-criminal traffic offenses."

4. The state should "encourage courts to collect overdue fines through holds on income tax refunds."

5. The state should "reinstate universal driver's education in the public schools."

6. The state should "bar courts from charging fees to reopen driver's licenses."

7. The state should "step up funding for agencies . . . such as the Center for Driver's License Recovery and Employability."

8. "Agencies involved in boosting employment [i.e., the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board and the W-2 agencies] should milk driver's license data to identify participants who need help in getting valid licenses."

9. "The state Department of Workforce Development should require that Wisconsin Works agencies aggressively seek to help their clients repair any driver's license problems."

10. "The Department of Corrections should help its population to obtain valid driver's licenses upon release."

11. Local governments should "forbid the use of driver's license suspension for non-payment of fines."

12. The Milwaukee Common Council should end the "practice of requiring residents to pay for the privilege of parking in front of their homes."

13. "Employers should require a license only if it's related to the job."