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

Abstract

This report presents interim estimates of the impacts of the Washington State Self-Employment and Enterprise Development (SEED) Demonstration on the employment and earnings experiences of program participants based primarily on data from a follow up telephone survey that was conducted approximately 21 months after random assignment. The interim impact results, measured as differences in outcomes between the treatment and control groups, indicate that the SEED Demonstration dramatically increased the likelihood of being self employed (by 25 percentage points), accelerated entry into self-employment (by six months) and increased earnings from self-employment over the observation period (by about $3,000). In contrast, the SEED Demonstration generally had negative impacts on wage and salary outcomes. Specifically, it delayed reemployment in a wage and salary job (by one month) and reduced earnings from such jobs (by about $2,500). Combining self-employment and wage and salary outcomes, the authors find that during the 21-month observation period SEED increased the likelihood of being employed (by about five percentage points) and increased total time employed (by about two months), but had no impacts on total earnings. A preliminary examination of SEED?s impact on job creation indicated that SEED significantly increased the employment of family members, but did not significantly increase the employment of non-family members.