Evaluation of the Ticket to Work Program Initial Evaluation Report

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B. PURPOSE AND ORGANIZATION OF THIS EVALUATION REPORT
This is the first report from the evaluation. Written using data collected within four
months after the effective date of the contract, its primary goal is to provide SSA with
formative information on program implementation. The issue of program effectiveness will
be addressed in subsequent reports. This report begins by reviewing the basic structure of
the TTW program and its legislative and programmatic context (Chapter II). It then turns to
the early TTW implementation experience, examining the many procedures and policies SSA
developed for this new program and the early operation experience of SSA, the Program
Manager and ENs (Chapter III). Then the report presents current statistics on the number
of tickets that have been mailed, accepted by ENs or SVRAs, and the characteristics of
beneficiaries who are using their Tickets (Chapter IV), which is followed by case studies of
experienced ENs that have served substantial numbers of beneficiaries under the TTW
program and that were interviewed earlier in the preliminary process analysis (Chapter V).
The report then turns to the important issue of the adequacy of incentives, using a mixture
of updated process information and statistics on ticket assignments (Chapter VI). The
report concludes with two chapters that identify the operational issues that deserve further
consideration (Chapter VII) and describe the remaining data collection, analysis, and
reporting activities of the evaluation (Chapter VIII). Appendices provide more detailed
statistics on ticket activity in the 33 states where TTW is currently operational, more details
about the case-study ENs, and details about how we identified beneficiaries in the AOI
groups.
I: Overview of the Ticket to Work Program and Its Evaluation