Bounding the return on investment and projecting the costs of expanding PROMISE services and activities: Initial insights from PROMISE for policymakers

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Promoting Readiness of Minors in SSI (PROMISE) is a uniquely large initiative, with over $229 million awarded to sites across the country, by the U.S. Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human services to improve the education and employment outcomes for youth who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and their families. OBJECTIVE: Policy makers need a clear understanding of the impact of the PROMISE intervention and the cost to roll out policy changes to the broader population; however, a comprehensive return on investment (ROI) analysis of PROMISE will not be available for many years, as it will require long-run information on the employment patterns of the participants. Although a full ROI analysis will be an essential tool to evaluate the policy implications of PROMISE, there is also a current need to understand the range of the ROI. To that end, this study aims to frame the bounds of the ROI for PROMISE and highlight the costs of expanding the availability of select services. CONCLUSION: The bounds of the ROI are determined by estimating the range of lifetime cost savings over levels of employment for SSI youth, accounting for benefit receipt and tax revenue. Using administrative data from the PROMISE sites, the study additionally estimates the cost to expanding select PROMISE services or activities within each state or site.

The Influence of Demographics and Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA) Employment and Training Services on Employment Outcomes for Teenagers Receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Their Parents

“…Similar differences were found in prior Wisconsin studies suggesting that intentionally targeting and coordinating employmentfocused services via cross-program referrals to diverse groups, including traditionally underserved and/or marginalized populations, yields a positive return on investment (Hartman et al, 2021;Lewis, 2019). And, purposefully conducting targeted outreach to youth and families receiving SSI benefits serves as a cost-effective mechanism for engaging underserved populations (Anderson et al, 2019;Crane et al, 2019;Enayati & Shaw, 2019).…”

Association of Demographic and Disability Characteristics With Total PROMISE Expenditure: Wisconsin PROMISE Findings—Brief Report

“…In addition, Anderson et al (2019) reported that youth who received targeted case management and family navigation generated approximately twice as much in tax revenue compared with youth who were in PROMISE control without a Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) case. The total expenditure to implement PROMISE for youth with disabilities was US$229 million (Enayati & Shaw, 2019), and service costs during 6-year period were about US$8.2 million for Wisconsin PROMISE participants (Anderson et al, 2019). To promote cost-effectiveness of future similar initiates, it is important to examine correlates of total annual expenditures.…”