Evaluation of the Ticket to Work Program, Implementation ...

xxivimprove TTW, therefore, is to find the mix of outreach, services, and incentives that willencourage not only providers to participate but also more of the beneficiaries who seethemselves leaving the rolls because of work to assign their Ticket and successfully earn theirway to financial self-sufficiency.Observed trends in beneficiary outcomes are consistent with TTW’s having a smalleffect on beneficiary behaviorWe compared data for Phase 1 TTW participants and nonparticipants in the 12 monthsbefore and 15 months after Tickets were mailed to determine whether participant outcomesafter the receipt of a Ticket tended to diverge from outcomes observed for nonparticipants.Such a difference in trends would be consistent with, but not necessarily the result of, aneffect of TTW. For SSI beneficiaries, the trends in outcome measures for participantsbefore and after Ticket mailings differ from the trends observed for nonparticipants in waysthat are consistent with the new program having, to some extent, promoted employment andprogram exit.. The trends suggest that TTW may have slightly increased the proportion ofSSI beneficiaries who receive zero benefits and who combine zero benefits with substantialemployment. The differences also suggest that the average benefit amount for SSIbeneficiaries who participate in TTW decreases slightly as a result of TTW. For DIbeneficiaries, the patterns of outcome measures during the postmailing period forparticipants and nonparticipants differ only slightly and therefore provide weaker evidencethat TTW produced its intended effects.These findings are tenuous for several reasons. Most important, we know from thesurvey results that many TTW participants are motivated to find work and, as a group, theywould probably be more successful than nonparticipants in the labor market even if Ticketshad never been mailed. Because our preliminary analysis of outcome trends is based onsimple analytic techniques that do not fully control for such motivational differences, theseearly findings ultimately may not be substantiated by the evaluation’s more rigorous analyses,still to be conducted and which will more fully control for the influence of such differences.Changes are needed if TTW is to realize its potentialThe latest findings from the evaluation reinforce the perception that while there aresome reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the program’s future, substantial changesmay soon be needed to both boost its limited momentum and realize its potential as aneffective conduit from the disability rolls to work. Making the program financially moreattractive to providers is critical, and doing so will mean assessing the payment systems andhow providers can help beneficiaries move more quickly to financial self-sufficiency (afterthis report was drafted SSA proposed substantial changes to the TTW payment system toencourage ENs to participate more actively). It is also clear that beneficiaries must be mademore aware of the program, since only about a third of them report knowing about TTW (orsomething like TTW). In any event, moving quickly on both fronts is key to ensuring thatproviders and beneficiaries sustain enough interest in the program such that it is given it afair test during its early years.Executive Summary