Every summer, teenagers and young adults across the US fill their bags and head to work, thanks to summer youth jobs programmes. These initiatives aim to connect youths to employment opportunities, provide income and marketable skills, and discourage risky behaviour. Policymakers hope that these programmes can set young people, particularly from low-income and marginalised backgrounds, on a better path, especially amidst rising juvenile crime rates and concerns about teen mental health. As summer job initiatives have risen nationally across the US, there is a growing body of research evaluation their impacts. Many of these have been run by researchers with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a social policy research centre based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The key, consistent takeaway from research is: These programmes can help prevent participants from falling into the criminal justice system, particularly for violent crimes.
