Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Highlights
- The study's objective was to examine the impact of the Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) project on public benefits receipt, employment, and earnings outcomes. This profile focuses on the study conducted in West Virginia. The authors investigated similar research questions for other contrasts, the profiles of which can be found here.
- The study was a randomized controlled trial that assigned eligible youth to the treatment or control group. The primary data sources were a baseline survey and administrative data sets from government agencies. The author used a series of statistical tests to compare the differences in outcomes between treatment and control group members.
- The study found that significantly more youth in the YTD program were receiving Social Security Income, or either Social Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) benefits 24 months after random assignment and that significantly more youth in the YTD program were employed both one year and two years after random assignment when compared to the control group.
- This study receives a high evidence rating. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) project, and not to other factors.
Intervention Examined
Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD)
Features of the Intervention
The Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) aimed to help youth with disabilities manage their transitions to adulthood and identify interventions to improve educational and vocational outcomes for youths receiving or potentially qualifying for Social Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) benefits. The Social Security Administration (SSA) implemented the YTD at several sites in the United States.
The West Virginia Youth Works operated one YTD program. The program served youth between the ages of 15 and 25, who received SSI or DI benefits, and lived across 19 counties in the state of West Virginia. The West Virginia Youth Works YTD program provided youth with individualized goal identification, benefit counseling, future-services planning, job search skills, and job placement activities. Once a youth in the program was hired for a job, they also received one-on-one job coaching and employment support services. Youth were eligible for services for up to 18 months.
Features of the Study
The study was a randomized controlled trial. Between March 2008 and September 2010, 842 youth were recruited for the study. Of the eligible youth, 449 were randomly assigned to the treatment group and 393 were randomly assigned to the control group. The treatment group received the full West Virginia Youth Works YTD program for up to 18 months. Treatment group youth were also eligible for certain waivers allowing them to keep more of their earnings without affecting their SSI payments. Youth in the control group were subject to standard SSA earnings rules and received standard employment services that would normally be available to youth in West Virginia. Study participants were predominantly male (58%), age 18 or older (83%), with a primary disability of other mental disorder (43%) or intellectual disability (31%). The primary data sources were a baseline survey on the background characteristics of youth, SSA Master Earnings File for W-2 derived earnings, Supplemental Security Record and Master Beneficiary Record for program participation histories for SSI and DI recipients, and the Numerical Identification System file for dates of death. The author used a series of statistical tests to compare differences in outcomes between treatment and control group members.
Findings
Public Benefits Receipt
- The study found that significantly more participants in the treatment group than the control group received SSI benefits or either SSI or DI benefits 24 months after random assignment.
- The study found that neither treatment nor control group youth earnings exceeded the substantial gainful activity (SGA) limit that would result in a reduction of benefit receipt.
- The study found that participants in the treatment group received significantly higher amounts of average SSA program payments than the control group 24 months after random assignment.
Employment
- The study found that significantly more participants in the treatment group than the control group were employed one year and two years after random assignment.
Earnings and Wages
- When comparing annual earnings among all participants, the study did not find any significant differences in the dollar amount earned by youth in the treatment group when compared to the control group.
- When comparing annual earnings among only participants with earnings, the study did not find any significant differences in the dollar amount earned by youth in the treatment group when compared to the control group.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
There are a few things to consider when interpreting the results from the current study. First, the author estimated many related impacts on earnings and public benefit receipt outcomes. Performing multiple statistical tests on related outcomes makes it more likely that some impacts will be found statistically significant purely by chance and not because they reflect program effectiveness. The author did not perform statistical adjustments to account for the multiple tests, so the number of statistically significant findings in these domains is likely to be overstated. Additionally, the study reports a less stringent statistical significance level for some findings, considering p-values of less than 0.10 to be significant, though it is standard practice to consider statistical significance if the p-value is less than 0.05. Only results that demonstrate a p-value of less than 0.05 are considered statistically significant in this profile.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high, because it is based on a well implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Youth Transition Demonstration project, and not to other factors.