Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

With its inception in the mid-1990s, the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) has grown into a national model that relies on city, state, and private funding of nearly $10 million a year to employ about 10,000 city teens each summer with hundreds of local employers.  Compared to other cities, the Boston SYEP also incorporates two distinct program features that may further enhance youth outcomes:  (1) a high share of job placements with private sector versus community-based employers, and (2) a new career readiness curriculum designed to teach participants how to search and apply for a job.  Using a randomized controlled trial, this paper assesses the impact of early work experiences provided by the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) on the  academic, labor market, and behavioral outcomes of low-income and minority inner-city youth.  In addition, we make use of a mixed-methods approach that combines administrative data on academic, economic, and behavioral outcomes with the responses from a survey that was conducted by the City of Boston during the summer of 2015.  This approach can provide additional insights into how SYEPs directly affect youth and ultimately improve a range of academic, economic and behavioral outcomes.  Preliminary results from the survey indicate that program participants reported significant increases in job readiness skills, financial literacy, community engagement, and college aspirations that were significantly different from the control group.  In most cases, the largest gains were observed for minority youth suggesting that the program may have the capacity to reduce inequality across groups.  Combined with administrative data on longer-term impacts, we will shed light on not only “what works,” but on what works for whom, under what conditions, and why.