Temporary jobs, long purported by welfare programs as a way to get people on their feet, don't do anything to increase earning potential.
People who worked temp jobs saw no or negative effect on their salary, while those hired to permanent positions saw steady increases, according to a study by David Autor at MIT published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The study used data from Detroit's welfare-to-work program to rate the effectiveness of temp placement programs, and pretty much calls them useless:
In net, we find that the widespread practice of placing disadvantaged workers into temporary-help jobs is an ineffective tool for improving earnings and, moreover, that programs focused solely on job placement fail to improve earnings among those who are hardest to serve.
The study should make policy-makers take a hard look on how they're helping disadvantaged people to get in the workplace.
Here's a graph showing regression of earnings for temp workers:
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