First Impact Analysis of the Washington State Self-Employment and Enterprise Development (SEED) Demonstration

摘要

The Washington State Self-Employment and Enterprise Development (SEED) Demonstration was the first federally-sponsored self-employment demonstration program for unemployed workers in the United States. The primary purpose of the SEED Demonstration was to determine the viability of self-employment as a reemployment option for recipients of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits who do not have immediate job prospects. Other objectives of the demonstration included determining whether the program provided benefits to participants in the form of accelerating reemployment, increasing business startups, increasing the duration of self-employment, increasing total employment and increasing total earnings. This report presents interim estimates of the impacts of SEED on the employment and earnings experiences of program participants based primarily on data from a followup telephone survey that was conducted approximately 21 months after random assignment. The interim results indicate that self-employment programs like SEED represent viable policy tools for promoting the rapid reemployment of UI claimants.