Boston’s Summer Youth Employment Program

Boston’s Summer Youth Employment Program

Designing for Efficiency and Equity

Alicia Sasser Modestino, Northeastern University

Rashad Cope, City of Boston

Policy Brief 2023-1

September, 2023

Along with many cities across the United States, the City of Boston supports a vibrant summer youth employment program that connects low-income youth living in marginalized communities to positions where they learn valuable skills that set them up for future success. Rigorous research evidence has shown that summer jobs programs, like the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), are a cost-effective way of improving a wide range of youth outcomes related to employment, education, and criminal justice involvement. Compared to other cities, the Boston SYEP operates as a coordinated ecosystem of workforce intermediaries that proved highly resilient during COVID, leading to an additional $4.1 million investment during summer 2020 to support four new tracks of programming, including a new Learn and Earn program.

Since then, the City of Boston and the other SYEP intermediaries have recognized the importance of increasing coordination and alignment across the ecosystem to “build back better” post-COVID. To lead this effort, the City has deepened its partnership with Northeastern University under a new multi-year project funded by the William T. Grant Foundation to address both the efficiency and equity challenges that the program has faced. Over the past two years, the research team has analyzed youth application and hiring records; interviewed youth, parents, employer-partners, and staff; and evaluated several pilot interventions, including a job matching algorithm, to increase both the number of jobs filled and the diversity of youth served.

This policy brief provides a summary of our research findings as well as an update on the City’s progress towards implementing a set of foundational recommendations. These efforts include expanding the number and type of summer opportunities, increasing access by streamlining application and hiring processes, and improving coordination across SYEP intermediaries to provide a range of high quality, skill building opportunities. As a result, the City made an unprecedented $18.7M investment in summer jobs in summer 2023, successfully employing over 9,000 young people ages 14 to 24, rebuilding the backbone for a more holistic and inclusive workforce development system for Boston’s youth.