Relevant Excerpt from the Study Overview Section:
- Year Up’s large positive earnings impacts persisted undiminished to the end of the seven-year follow-up period.
Average quarterly earnings in Quarters 23-24 (the report’s single confirmatory outcome) were $1,895 higher for treatment than control group members (a 28 percent increase over the control group’s $6,901 average quarterly earnings). Impacts of about $2,000 per quarter extended to the end of the seven-year follow-up period. . Although large for nearly all subgroups and offices examined, the size of impacts varied to a considerable degree across groups, as in earlier analyses.
- Favorable impacts extended to wider financial outcomes, but effects in other spheres of life were minimal.
Increased earnings led to increases in household and personal income and decreases in housing insecurity, debt, and public benefit receipt. There were no effects on longer-term education credentials, psycho-social well-being, family formation, or self-assessed health.
We have no suggested revisions to the study’s published abstract.
No-Spin’s Study Overview
High quality RCT of Year Up’s original model, a job training program for low-income young adults that focuses on fast-growing economic sectors, finds remarkable long-term earnings gains of 30%, or $8,000 per year.
Program:
- Year Up’s original model is a full-time, year-long workforce training program for economically-disadvantaged young adults that focuses on economic sectors with jobs in high demand—namely, information technology and financial services.
- For the first six months, participants attend full-time training courses at Year Up to develop professional and technical skills. Participants then complete a six-month, full-time internship with local employers, often Fortune 500 companies. The program also provides extensive financial supports, mentoring, and post-program job search and placement services.
- The program cost is about $28,290 per participant (2014 dollars), over half of which ($16,700, or 59%) is paid by employers.
Study Design:
- The RCT sample comprised 2,544 young adults ages 18-24 with a high school diploma or equivalent. 54% were Black, 31% were Hispanic, 59% were male, and almost all came from low-income families, with an average family income of $27,000 per year. Sample members were recruited from all eight Year Up program offices, which serve young adults in nine U.S. cities.
- Based on our careful review, this was a high-quality RCT (e.g., baseline balance, low attrition).
Findings:
- The study’s main findings are shown in the graph below. At the longest follow-up — year 7 after study entry — Year Up produced a statistically significant 30% ($8,251) increase in average annual earnings.
- These effects showed no sign of diminishing over time. They were also sizable in virtually all study sites and subgroups examined (e.g., gender, race), showing that the effects generalize broadly across settings and populations.
Comment:
- Year Up carefully screens applicants and enrolls those identified as being motivated to succeed and interested in career advancement. The effects may not apply to individuals who fall outside such criteria.
- This study evaluated Year Up’s original model, which it refers to as the “core program.” Year Up has since launched other versions of the program that incorporate significant adaptations aimed, for example, at reducing costs. The positive findings described above cannot be assumed to apply to the adapted versions. Findings from an evaluation of one such version, Year Up Professional Training Corps, are reviewed here.
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