New Evaluation Shows Significant Short-Term Gains for Out-of School & Out-of-Work Youth, but Still a Long Way to Go
New York City’s Young Adult Internship Program (YAIP) has a strongly implemented program model that has succeeded in achieving short-term gains for participating youth, but those gains have not been sustained over a longer period, according to a new evaluation of the program released by MDRC.
YAIP, which was launched by NYC Opportunity and the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) in 2007, was designed to connect relatively job-ready youth, ages 16–24, who are not working and not in school to sustainable employment or educational and training opportunities through a short-term workforce development intervention. The program was expanded in 2011 with funding from the Young Men’s Initiative and is currently being implemented at 17 sites.
The evaluation, which was conducted by MDRC as part of the federally funded Subsidized and Transitional Employment Demonstration (STED) project, used a randomized control trial design to compare outcomes for 2,678 young adults randomly assigned to either a program group that was offered YAIP services, or to a control group that was not offered YAIP but could still seek out alternative services. The study found that youth enrolled in YAIP saw significant short-term gains in employment outcomes compared to peers in the control group. However, those impacts did not persist over the full follow-up period of about 2 years.
Key findings of the evaluation include:
· At about 9 months post-program, 95% of the YAIP group had been employed during the past year, compared to 66% of the control group;
· The YAIP group earned an average of $6,674 over the first year of the study, compared to $3,247 for the control, with only $1,704 of that amount coming from the subsidized internship;
· By the end of about two years of follow-up post-program, employment rates and earnings converged between the two groups;
· Among youth entering the study without their high school diploma or its equivalent, YAIP youth were ultimately 15% more likely to attain their high school credential than their peers in the control group.
To learn more, read about the findings in the NYC Opportunity Response and Findings at a Glance.
For full results, read Forging a Path: Impacts and Costs of New York City’s Young Adult Internship Program.
