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This paper examines employment-focused interventions within the US disability system. Our review illustrates the challenges of developing and implementing these types of initiatives, despite substantial policy interest. Our findings indicate that none of the demonstrations we reviewed have the potential to lead to substantial caseload reductions that could reverse program growth. However, they can inform future designs, particularly the importance of customizing supports to very well-defined target populations.

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The purpose of the Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) was to assist youths aged 14 to 25 with disabilities to successfully transition from school to economic self-sufficiency. Successful transitions included pursuing a post-secondary education or employment. Through agreements with community-based agencies at six sites in five US States, YTD provided a broad array of transition-related services and supports to participants. The YTD staff also established partnerships with other agencies and with employers to improve employment and educational outcomes. Services included: individualized work-based experiences; youth empowerment; family supports; system linkages; social and health services; and benefits counseling. Recognizing that a major barrier to employment for youths with disabilities is the fear of losing Social Security benefits, the YTD provided five waivers of program rules designed to allow participants to keep more of their earnings and encourage both savings and their continued education.

This document reports on the evaluation of YTD undertaken by Mathematica Policy Research for Social Security Administration (SSA). The purpose of the evaluation was to identify and test the most promising service strategies, combined with SSA waivers of certain program rules to enhance work incentives, for helping youth with disabilities maximize their economic self-sufficiency as they transition to adulthood. SSA selected six project sites into the evaluation based on their adoption of promising strategies to support youth with disabilities and on their capacity and willingness to support evaluation activities. Projects entered the YTD random assignment evaluation in two phases spaced several years apart. There were systematic differences between the phases in how the projects were implemented and their impacts on youth. The evaluation's three-year impact analysis examined each project's impacts on youth outcomes in five domains: (1) paid employment and earnings; (2) youth income; (3) participation in productive activities; (4) contact with the justice system; and (5) self-determination. The implications of the YTD evaluation for policy and practice will not be fully known until findings from SSA's long-term benefit-cost analysis become available. At a minimum, that will be several years in the future. In the meantime, six implications based on the findings presented in this report and the site-specific interim reports are outlined.

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