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Field
Last Published
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Before
October 25, 2021 11:59 AM
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After
January 21, 2022 05:19 PM
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Our primary short-run outcomes are:
1. Take-up of the career-readiness book
2. Take-up of tutoring for the child (instead of cash) as the lottery prize
3. Take-up of online math tutoring
4. Take-up of Vocational Rehabilitation services
If we are able to obtain data, our later-run plan is to add in medium-run and longer-run outcomes on educational outcomes, use of vocational rehabilitation services, earnings, take-up of public assistance in adulthood, and potentially criminal activity.
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After
Our primary short-run outcomes are:
1. Take-up of the career-readiness book
2. Take-up of tutoring for the child (instead of cash) as the lottery prize
3. Take-up of online math tutoring
4. Take-up of Vocational Rehabilitation services
If we are able to obtain data, our later-run plan is to add in medium-run and longer-run outcomes on educational outcomes, use of vocational rehabilitation services, earnings, take-up of public assistance in adulthood, and potentially criminal activity.
Our primary short-run outcomes in the second round of our survey are:
1. Take-up of the career book (in the second round, it is a career book for parents)
2. Parents' short-term and long-term work plans (two separate questions)
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
Short-run outcomes will be collected from our websurvey and resource center data. This will be our primary method for determining the immediate impact of the intervention. Most outcomes are binary 1/0 for taking up a resource, conditional on reaching the video portion of the websurvey. All the resource outcomes are conditional on not answering that the child does not receive SSI when asked at baseline how much the child receives in SSI benefits.
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After
Short-run outcomes will be collected from our websurvey and resource center data. This will be our primary method for determining the immediate impact of the intervention. Most outcomes are binary 1/0 for taking up a resource, conditional on reaching the video portion of the websurvey. All the resource outcomes are conditional on not answering that the child does not receive SSI when asked at baseline how much the child receives in SSI benefits.
For the second round of our survey, the parents' plans for future work will come from questions asked in our endline survey.
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
We randomly select the sample for our intervention groups and our experimental control group using administrative data provided by SSA. Our sampling frame is the sample of parents of kids receiving SSI who are 14-17.5, have not had an older sibling on SSI at age 17, speak English or Spanish as their primary language, have a projected probability of removal between 35%-95%, were not selected for one of our pilot surveys, and have either (a) above-median removal probability for their state (meaning that, in most cases, we only examine children with relatively high removal probabilities), OR (b) are in a state where we expect to get administrative education data (where we hence include those with both high and low removal probabilities since we want to maximize our potential sample size for education data outcomes).
Those not selected but who are in our sampling frame represent our “pure control” group which we are not analyzing for our short-run outcomes analysis, but may bring in for analyses of longer-run outcomes.
Each household in the information treatment group, primed information treatment group, or experimental control group is mailed a letter inviting them to participate in our websurvey. Parents can then log on and complete (or complete via phone) our survey, which consists of a baseline survey, the intervention video, and an endline survey.
The intervention video will vary by treatment group.
- The information and primed information treatment groups will view the video on their child’s removal probability
- The experimental control group will be randomly divided into two groups—One that receives a placebo video on the history of SSI and the other that receives a placebo video on the geography of SSI.
After the video ends, those in the “primed information” treatment group also see a screen that gives more information about how SSI makes removal decisions.
The endline survey has three main parts. First, we ask several questions about perceived likelihood of removal and plans for the future (e.g., whether the parent thinks their child will attend college). Second, we offer parents the choice between receiving their survey completion incentive in cash vs a reduced cash payment plus a Career Readiness Book for Teens. At this point, we also offer the choice between $300 worth of tutoring for their child vs $50 cash should they be selected as a lottery winner. Finally, at the end of the websurvey, we invite all participants to the “Resource Center” where they can sign up for free opportunities for their child including Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) services, an ABLE savings account, and math tutoring. At the invitation, those who are randomized to receive the “Confidentiality treatment” will be told that their take-up decisions will be confidential and not shared with the Social Security Administration.
After completing the survey, parents can go to the Resource Center and select educational and career-readiness resources for their child at no charge to them. Those who are randomized to receive the “Confidentiality Treatment” will also see the confidentiality message on the main screen of the Resource Center where they select their resources.
In the weeks following completion, parents will receive additional follow-up mailings, emails, and texts (if they consent to being contacted by email and text) with reminders about resources and the information intervention (or placebo information).
Our longer-term plan will then be to gather longer-term outcomes and compare the experimental control and experimental treatment groups. If survey take-up is sufficiently high, we will also incorporate the pure control as another comparison group for those analyses.
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After
We randomly select the sample for our intervention groups and our experimental control group using administrative data provided by SSA. Our sampling frame is the sample of parents of kids receiving SSI who are 14-17.5, have not had an older sibling on SSI at age 17, speak English or Spanish as their primary language, have a projected probability of removal between 35%-95%, were not selected for one of our pilot surveys, and have either (a) above-median removal probability for their state (meaning that, in most cases, we only examine children with relatively high removal probabilities), OR (b) are in a state where we expect to get administrative education data (where we hence include those with both high and low removal probabilities since we want to maximize our potential sample size for education data outcomes).
Those not selected but who are in our sampling frame represent our “pure control” group which we are not analyzing for our short-run outcomes analysis, but may bring in for analyses of longer-run outcomes.
Each household in the information treatment group, primed information treatment group, or experimental control group is mailed a letter inviting them to participate in our websurvey. Parents can then log on and complete (or complete via phone) our survey, which consists of a baseline survey, the intervention video, and an endline survey.
The intervention video will vary by treatment group.
- The information and primed information treatment groups will view the video on their child’s removal probability
- The experimental control group will be randomly divided into two groups—One that receives a placebo video on the history of SSI and the other that receives a placebo video on the geography of SSI.
After the video ends, those in the “primed information” treatment group also see a screen that gives more information about how SSI makes removal decisions.
The endline survey has three main parts. First, we ask several questions about perceived likelihood of removal and plans for the future (e.g., whether the parent thinks their child will attend college and whether the parent plans to work in the coming years). Second, we offer parents the choice between receiving their survey completion incentive in cash vs a reduced cash payment plus a Career Readiness Book for Teens (in the second round of the survey, we offer a Career Book for Parents in place of the Career Book for Teens). At this point, we also offer the choice between $300 worth of tutoring for their child vs $50 cash should they be selected as a lottery winner. Finally, at the end of the websurvey, we invite all participants to the “Resource Center” where they can sign up for free opportunities for their child including Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) services, an ABLE savings account, and math tutoring. At the invitation, those who are randomized to receive the “Confidentiality treatment” will be told that their take-up decisions will be confidential and not shared with the Social Security Administration.
After completing the survey, parents can go to the Resource Center and select educational and career-readiness resources for their child at no charge to them. Those who are randomized to receive the “Confidentiality Treatment” will also see the confidentiality message on the main screen of the Resource Center where they select their resources.
In the weeks following completion, parents will receive additional follow-up mailings, emails, and texts (if they consent to being contacted by email and text) with reminders about resources and the information intervention (or placebo information).
Our longer-term plan will then be to gather longer-term outcomes and compare the experimental control and experimental treatment groups. If survey take-up is sufficiently high, we will also incorporate the pure control as another comparison group for those analyses.
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Field
Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
37,000 households
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After
First Round: 37,000 households
Second Round: 6,750 households
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Planned Number of Observations
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Before
37,000 invited, target response of 8,000
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After
First Round: 37,000 invited, target response of 8,000
Second Round: 6,750 invited, target response of 1,000
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
Experimental Treatment Sample (invited to complete websurvey): 37,000 invited, 8,000 expected completions, split as follows:
Information Treatment: 48%
24% receive confidentiality treatment
24% do not receive confidentiality treatment
Experimental Control: 48%
12% receive history placebo video and confidentiality treatment
12% receive history placebo video and no confidentiality treatment
12% receive geography placebo video and confidentiality treatment
12% receive geography placebo video and no confidentiality treatment
Primed Information Treatment: 4% of sample
Pure Control Sample (not invited to complete websurvey): roughly 22,200
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After
First Round: Experimental Treatment Sample (invited to complete websurvey): 37,000 invited, 8,000 expected completions, split as follows:
Information Treatment: 48%
24% receive confidentiality treatment
24% do not receive confidentiality treatment
Experimental Control: 48%
12% receive history placebo video and confidentiality treatment
12% receive history placebo video and no confidentiality treatment
12% receive geography placebo video and confidentiality treatment
12% receive geography placebo video and no confidentiality treatment
Primed Information Treatment: 4% of sample
Second Round: Experimental Treatment Sample (invited to complete websurvey) 6,750 invited, 1,000 expected completions, split as follows:
Information Treatment: 50%
50% do not receive confidentiality treatment
Experimental Control: 50%
25% receive history placebo video and no confidentiality treatment
25% receive geography placebo video and no confidentiality treatment
Pure Control Sample (not invited to complete websurvey): roughly 22,200
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