Three-Year Effects of the Youth Transition Demonstration Projects

This article examines the effects of the Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD), a Social Security Administration initiative to provide employment services and enhanced work incentives to disability-program beneficiaries aged 14-25. YTD was evaluated during 2005-2014 using a randomized controlled trial research design. Follow-up surveys of and administrative data on 5,103 individuals in six project sites were used to estimate the effects of the YTD projects 1 year and 3 years after youths enrolled in the study. The analysis found statistically significant positive impacts of approximately 7 percentage points on employment rates in three sites during the third postenrollment year.