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Reducing Poverty and Advancing Equity: A Retrospective

This retrospective looks at the way the NYCOpportunity initiative worked across City government, partnering with agencies to initiate new approaches and enhance city practices. It also highlights key areas of focus for the NYC Opportunity team between 2014 and 2021.

NYC Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity
Report

CSNS Mecklenburg: Strengthening Community Relationship to End Child Hunger

This report outlines how the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services (DSS) is leading an initiative to coordinate nutrition supports across government and community partners to streamline access to resources that improve food security for families in Mecklenburg County. Through this project, households experiencing food insecurity will not only have a better understanding of the resources and services available to them, but also will find it easier to apply for public benefit programs.

Share Our Strength, American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Case Study

State WIC Agencies Use Federal Flexibility to Streamline Enrollment

This report outlines how state WIC agencies can adjust their policies to remove enrollment barriers. The report also provides detailed research on the status of WIC eligibility practices and documentation requirements across states.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Report

Sprint 1 Report | Michigan Cross-Enrollment | Increasing cross-enrollment between unemployment insurance and supporting benefits in Michigan

This project documents the work of Civilla and New America to increase cross-enrollment between unemployment insurance and supporting benefits in Michigan. This project is one phase of a larger body of work led by New America to improve the claimant and staff experience with unemployment insurance across the country.

Civilla, New America
Report

Increasing Security and Equity in Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT)

There has been exponential growth in benefits theft by criminals who are “cloning and skimming” EBT cards, leaving thousands of families with drained accounts and limited recourse in getting back their benefits. In this webinar, a panel of experts discuss what states can do right now to improve EBT security, how to use data to analyze theft patterns, and how EBT payment technology needs to evolve to ensure efficiency, security, and dignity for beneficiaries.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Video

Making Our Systems See People

Code for America CEO introduces the Safety Net Innovation Lab in a TED Talk, their initiative to work with state governments to reimagine and rebuild delivery of accessible and equitable benefits. This article also includes the video of Renteria’s talk and a transcript.

Code for America
Video

Algorithmic Accountability for the Public Sector

This report presents evidence on the use of algorithmic accountability policies in different contexts from the perspective of those implementing these tools, and explores the limits of legal and policy mechanisms in ensuring safe and accountable algorithmic systems.

Ada Lovelace Institute (Ada), AI Now Institute (AI Now), Open Government Partnership (OGP)
Report

Rules as code: Seven levels of digitisation

This report, written for practitioners, classifies “digital transformation” of legal rules into a hierarchy of levels to help establish common terms.

Singapore Management University
Report

Helping Families Access Public Benefits with AI and Automation

Webinar that shares Nava’s partnership with the Gates Foundation and the Benefits Data Trust that seeks to answer if generative and predictive AI can be used ethically to help reduce administrative burdens for benefits navigators.

Nava PBC
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Blueprint for a Human-Centered Safety Net

Describes the Principles of a Human-Centered Safety Net: Many Welcoming Doors, Easy to Understand, Clients Can Make Informed Decisions, Responsive to Changing Needs, Simple Actions

Code for America
Toolkit

I Am Not a Number

In early 2023, Wired magazine ran four pieces exploring the use of algorithms to identify fraud in public benefits and potential harms, deeply exploring cases from Europe.

Wired
News

Guide on Advancing Equity through Quantitative Analysis

Initially created to inform federal staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this guide explores opportunities to advance equity in quantitative analysis, including by recognizing common biases (e.g., research and measurement bias). The guide also discusses specific quantitative methods and tools to help quantitative analyses address equity.

Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
Government Documents

Improving Outcomes for Families through Better Use of Data: The TANF Data Collaborative

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Data Innovation project and the TANF Data Collaborative (TDC) Pilot were established to expand the routine use, integration, and analysis of TANF and employment data by agency staff to improve program services and outcomes for families with low incomes. This nine-minute video, produced after the completion of the TDC Pilot, features staff members from the California, Colorado, Minnesota, and Virginia TANF agencies reflecting on their challenges, accomplishments, and general experiences during the pilot.

Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation
Video

Evaluating Facial Recognition Technology: A Protocol for Performance Assessment in New Domains

In May 2020, Stanford's HAI hosted a workshop to discuss the performance of facial recognition technologies that included leading computer scientists, legal scholars, and representatives from industry, government, and civil society. The white paper this workshop produced seeks to answer key questions in improving understandings of this rapidly changing space.

Stanford University, Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
Academic Article

“It has meant everything”: How P-EBT Helped Families in Michigan

This report explores Michigan’s implementation of the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program. Drawing on interviews from individuals within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and input from SNAP participants via surveys distributed using the Fresh EBT app, this report provides insights into the strategies that enabled Michigan to roll out an entirely new program quickly and effectively.

New America
Report

Improving service delivery in EITC for New Yorkers

New America’s New Practice Lab is directing research with the aim to increase the money in the pockets of low-income families by enhancing service delivery in federal programs that help families. To address this challenge in one specific state, the New Practice Lab partnered with the New York Department of Taxation and Finance (NYSDTF) team to understand the factors that present challenges to the administration of the EITC. The team highlights recommendations and learnings from its research in this article.

New America
Case Study

18F Agile-based project approach

18F describes its Agile-based project approach combining iterative software development, product management, user-centered design, and DevOps.

18F
Toolkit

Balancing at the Edge of the Cliff: Experiences and Calculations of Benefit Cliffs, Plateaus, and Trade-Offs

As family’s earnings rise, those earnings increases are often offset by declines in public assistance benefits (commonly called “benefit cliffs” when the declines are sharp) and increases in taxes owed. At the same time, refundable tax credits—which offset taxes owed and are delivered as a tax refund—can boost income. These interactions can be confusing and make it difficult for parents to anticipate how increasing their work hours, hourly wage rate, or both will affect their benefits, taxes, and income to support their families. This study estimates what happens to benefits and taxes when earnings increase and also explores how people perceive public benefit interactions, trade-offs, and benefit cliffs as they increase their work hours or earn higher wages.

Urban Institute
Report

Biden-Harris PMA Webinar: Streamlining Service Delivery for Five Life Experiences

The Performance.gov team hosted a webinar featuring federal customer experience (CX) changemakers from across government and focused on the nine CX projects that aim to address pain points learned about through human-centered design research.

Performance.gov
Video

Documenting Pandemic EBT for the 2020-21 School Year

The Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program was launched as an effort to address the loss of access to free and reduced-price school meals due to widespread school closures at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools reopened in a shifting mix of fully virtual, hybrid, and inperson formats and families lacked consistent access to school meals, these benefits were extended through the 2020–21 school year and were highly valuable to families in buffering the full extent of food insecurity they may have faced during this uncertain time. However, the complexity of administering this program was a fundamental barrier in providing timely support to families, who ultimately went without benefits for at least half of the school year. In this report, we dive into the challenges state administrators faced in launching this new program during the 2020–21 school year and reflect on considerations for the future.

Urban Institute, American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Report

Matching Data Across Benefits Programs Can Increase WIC Enrollment

Although Medicaid and SNAP participants are automatically income-eligible for WIC, many don’t enroll. Pilot projects in four states have shown that matching data across programs to identify these families and conducting outreach to them can increase WIC enrollment.

Benefits Data Trust, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Case Study

Think Big, Start Small: How Implementing Flexible Interviews Improves Benefit Delivery

LA County and GetCalFresh made access to food assistance more equitable by offering a more flexible interview process.

Code for America
Non-Academic Article

Establishing Emergency Cash Assistance Programs

A guide by New America to help cities and states set up cash assistance programs for their residents, based on the Alia Cares platform that the National Domestic Workers Alliance built to run their Coronavirus Cares Fund that provides emergency assistance for home care workers to support them in staying safe and at home to slow the spread of COVID.

New America
Report

Digital Identity Guidelines: Federation and Assertions

These guidelines provide technical requirements for federal agencies implementing digital identity services and are not intended to constrain the development or use of standards outside of this purpose. This guideline focuses on the use of federated identity and the use of assertions to implement identity federations. Federation allows a given credential service provider to provide authentication and (optionally) subscriber attributes to a number of separately-administered relying parties.

National Institute of Standards and Technology
Report

Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means: Professor Don Moynihan

Professor Don Moynihan discusses how administrative burden is an effective tool to make it difficult for people to access certain types of benefits, noting that this is particularly harmful to communities of color.

University College Dublin
Video

Opening Keynote–a Fireside Chat with the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee on Identity Fraud

In this video, Susan S. Gibson, chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee's (PRAC) Identity Fraud and Redress Working Group, speaks with Jeremy Grant of the Better Identity Coalition, about the challenges of identity fraud for benefits program during the COVID-19 pandemic. This video comes from the Better Identity Coalition’s 2022 policy forum, “Identity, Authentication, and the Road Ahead."

Better Identity Coalition
Video

“It’s Like Night and Day”: How Bureaucratic Encounters Vary across WIC, SNAP, and Medicaid

Using 83 interviews with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Medicaid beneficiaries, and 35 interviews with staff from those programs, this paper examines how people differentiate their experiences across programs.

Social Service Review, The University of Chicago
Academic Article

Digital Authentication and Identity Proofing in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Applications

On May 19, 2023, the Digital Benefits Network published a new, open dataset documenting authentication and identity proofing requirements across online SNAP, WIC, TANF, Medicaid, child care (CCAP) applications, and unemployment insurance applications. This page includes data and observations about authentication and identity proofing steps specifically for online applications that include SNAP.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Dataset

Accessible Technology Procurement Toolkit

A guide on how to procure for accessible technology.

Disability:IN
Toolkit

CSNS New Mexico: Improving Online Infrastructure to Expand WIC's Reach

This report outlines how the New Mexico Human Services Department (HSD) and Department of Health (NMDOH) are working to maximize WIC participation among SNAP families through automated referrals and streamlined application and enrollment across agencies.

Share Our Strength, American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Case Study

Making Public Benefits More Accessible in Minnesota

This report highlights work with Minnesota and includes nine suggestions for states seeking to launch their own integrated benefits applications

Code for America
Report

Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence

Issued on October 30, 2023, this Executive Order provides guidance to support the responsible development of Artificial Intelligence.

The White House
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ITEM 10: How a Small Legal Aid Team Took on Algorithmic Black Boxing at Their State’s Employment Agency (And Won)

In June 2022, Legal Aid of Arkansas won a significant victory in their ongoing work to compel Arkansas’ employment agency to disclose crucial details about how it uses automated decision-making systems to detect and adjudicate fraud.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Non-Academic Article

Delivering a Multilingual User Experience for Retroactive Pandemic Unemployment Assistance

A state partner needed to reopen applications to claimants who were previously denied benefits and determine if they are eligible to receive retroactive PUA payments. To help combat these issues, the state agency wanted to create a self-guided experience that was clear for claimants as well as reduce load on their call center. The team focused on providing enough contextual information in order to build trust and provide clarity with claimants, and worked to test content and form design before launching the new service in order to preempt and mitigate support issues.

U.S. Digital Response
Case Study

Spanish Translation Guide for Unemployment Insurance

U.S. Digital Response’s Spanish Translation Guide for Unemployment Insurance provides practical guidelines and resources to help governments improve communication with Spanish speakers seeking access to unemployment insurance (UI) benefits.

U.S. Digital Response
Toolkit

Coordinating SNAP and Nutrition Supports

Coordinating SNAP and Nutrition Supports (CSNS) is a cohort program funded by Share Our Strength, No Kid Hungry and administered by the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) with the goal of aligning the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with other federal, state, and local nutrition supports to combat childhood hunger.

American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Link to Other Resources

Kansas' Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Supports Impact Report

Kansas' Department for Children and Families and Department of Health and Environment partnered with Delivering Change as part of cohort 1 of the Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Supports program to enhance SNAP and WIC access in seven key counties through innovative data sharing and targeted outreach to identify and enroll eligible individuals. This report documents best practices and lessons learned from their project.

American Public Human Services Association
Report

Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility Renewals: A Communications Toolkit

This toolkit has important information to help inform people with Medicaid or CHIP about steps to take to renew their coverage or find other health care options.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Toolkit

C-STAT: Achieving Results for Colorado - Summary Report

This report describes C-Stat 2.0, an updated version of the the Colorado Department of Human Services’ performance-based analysis strategy that allows them to better focus on and improve performance outcomes that enhance people’s lives.

Colorado Department of Human Services
Report

Opportunities to Streamline Enrollment Across Public Benefit Programs

Data-sharing across public benefits programs can help enroll low-income people into other benefits for which they qualify. This guide helps local policymakers and program officials identify opportunities under federal law to streamline the application and enrollment process.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Report

Designing for Multilingual Translation

Complex benefits information creates unnecessary barriers for residents and navigators who must understand what’s relevant to them so they can receive benefits. For non-native English speakers, these barriers are exacerbated. This resource guide outlines approaches for translating content to improve equitable access to benefits.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

Building Modular, Reusable, and Flexible Components, Tools, and Formats

This resource contains specific examples that highlight the advantages of designing reusable code components, software tools, or design formats. This guide also illustrates the possibilities for connecting new components to existing system infrastructure.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

Text to Connect: Engineering + Technology Requirements for Using Text Message Outreach to Reduce SNAP Churn

This guide is the sixth and final part of a series designed to help SNAP administrators implement a text messaging program to reduce SNAP churn. This guide addresses technical and engineering requirements for a text messaging program, including texting platform options, and procurement and vendor management, among other technical implementation topics.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University, Benefits Data Trust
Toolkit

CSNS Hawaii: Building a Data-Driven Foundation to Help Hunger in Hawai'i

The Hawai‘i Department of Human Services (DHS), in partnership with the Hawai‘i Department of Health (DOH) and the Children’s Healthy Living Center of Excellence (CHL Center) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, is building foundational capacity to share and analyze administrative data across the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). This groundwork will enable Hawai‘i to increase access to nutrition support programs, in alignment with Hawai‘i’s ‘Ohana Nui framework, which aims to dismantle intergenerational poverty.

American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) and No Kid Hungry, Share Our Strength
Case Study

Artificial Intelligence: Background, Selected Issues, and Policy Considerations

This report aims to help congressional leaders understand AI, and provide key terms and definitions that would be important in crafting or understanding potential legislation on the topic.

Congressional Research Service
Government Documents

Does Administrative Burden Influence Public Support for Government Programs? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

It is hypothesized that if information about the existing screening mechanisms is highlighted and made salient, this will lead to greater approval of eligibility-based programs. The results of this study demonstrate the ways in which in which information regarding administrative burden can shape citizens’ support for eligibility-based programs.

Public Administration Review
Academic Article

Toolkit for Helping States Implement People-Centered Pandemic EBT

With the extension and expansion of P-EBT during COVID and the Food and Nutrition Service releasing new guidance, states have an opportunity to effectively deliver essential resources to children and families. Code for America built this toolkit of resources to share recommendations and promising practices around the implementation of P-EBT and to support state agencies and partners tasked with the development of P-EBT programs.

Code for America
Toolkit

Matching and Verifying Client Data Using Linkages Across Benefit

Data linking is an important tool that lets benefits program administrators efficiently determine eligibility, and ensure that applicants receive all of the benefits for which they are eligible. This resource provides examples and practical guides that explain how to use existing regulations and data sharing agreements to transfer client information or eligibility status between benefit programs.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

Design Justice Network Principles

Design justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face.

Design Justice Network
Toolkit

Text to Connect: Data Collection Considerations for Using Text Message Outreach to Reduce SNAP Churn

This guide is the fifth part of a series designed to help SNAP administrators implement a text messaging program to reduce SNAP churn. This guide is intended to help data engineers and analysts build the data pipeline and manage, analyze, and synthesize data needed for a text messaging program.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University, Benefits Data Trust
Toolkit

Popular Support for Balancing Equity and Efficiency in Resource Allocation

This article explores how online advertising algorithms bias between Spanish and English speakers for SNAP in California.

Cornell University, Code for America, Stanford University, Harvard Kennedy School
Academic Article

Streamlining Medicaid Renewals Through the Ex Parte Process

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) should provide detailed guidance and oversight to help states improve automatic Medicaid renewals using available data, through the ex parte process.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Non-Academic Article

Make RFPs More Equitable

A Request For Proposals (RFP) is a document describing a project that needs an outside business to complete. Clear, concise RFPs are necessary to attract potential talent, in addition to making the process more equitable and efficient. This article provides several suggestions on improving an organization’s RFP.

Bellweather Agency
Toolkit

Cell Phones as a Safety Net Lifeline

Eligible people struggle to maintain their case status for critical safety net services, often due to administrative hurdles and poor communication. Code for America piloted text message reminders to support Louisianans, which helped clients avoid costly churn. Text messages are an underrated, efficient solution for human service agencies to meet client expectations and improve case outcomes.

Code for America
News

Bringing Social Safety Net Benefits Online: Examining online platforms for all 50 states

This visualized report is a first first-of-its-kind view of the state of benefits applications across the nation from a client perspective, including information on application availability online, combined benefit applications, application completion times, as well as login and identity proofing requirements.

Code for America
Graphic

Keynote: Carole House, Director for Cybersecurity and Secure Digital Innovation, NSC

In this keynote presentation, Carole House, the Director for Cybersecurity and Secure Digital Innovation at the National Security Council discusses cybersecurity and identity management priorities at the federal level.

Better Identity Coalition
Video

Digital Identity and Public Benefits: Announcing a New Research Agenda

An announcement about the Digital Benefits Network's new research agenda on digital identity in public benefits.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
News

Using Asset Verification Systems to Streamline Medicaid Determinations

This paper explores the background of the asset verification system requirement, the vendors that administer the systems; and the typical AVS process. It discusses AVSs’ current limitations and highlights best practices for advocates to promote and state agencies to implement to improve the AVS process and streamline eligibility determinations. Finally, it recommends federal action to help AVS states streamline processing.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Non-Academic Article

Why All Guaranteed Income is Narrative Work: Best Practices for Centering Dignity, Race, and Gender in Cash-Based Programs

This guide and set of best practices was created to help leaders of new and existing guaranteed income projects to thoughtfully narrate their work.

Insight Center for Community Economic Development, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income
Report

Exposing Error in Poverty Management Technology: A Method for Auditing Government Benefits Screening Tools

This paper introduces a method for auditing benefits eligibility screening tools in four steps: 1) generate test households, 2) automatically populate screening questions with household information and retrieve determinations, 3) translate eligibility guidelines into computer code to generate ground truth determinations, and 4) identify conflicting determinations to detect errors.

University of Michigan, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Academic Article

Does the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Affect Hospital Utilization Among Older Adults? The Case of Maryland

Accounting for the strong effects of health care access, this study finds that SNAP is associated with reduced hospitalization in dually eligible older adults. Policies to increase SNAP participation and benefit amounts in eligible older adults may reduce hospitalizations and health care costs for older dual eligible adults living in the community.

Benefits Data Trust
Academic Article

Simple Changes Can Make a Big Difference for Clients Accessing Government Benefits

Our work with Pennsylvania to implement user experience and user interface changes shows that innovation can be easier to implement than it might seem.

Code for America
Non-Academic Article

In-Depth Equity Assessment Guide

Initially created to inform federal staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this tool describes how to conduct intensive equity assessments of existing programs, policies, and processes. It may be useful for state and local governments, tribal governments, and other private or non-profit organizations focused on programs and policies relating to health and human services.

Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
Government Documents

Building the Tech-Enabled Safety Net: Public Benefits and Innovation Amid COVID-19

COVID-19 has highlighted the central role that technology plays in delivering essential services such as food, housing assistance, and unemployment insurance. How that technology is designed can make the difference between receiving or being denied the public benefits people are eligible for. The social safety net has been remade on the fly in response to COVID-19, but temporary patches to our systems aren’t sustainable. A growing field of tech-enabled safety net organizations have begun building tools that apply modern digital technology to the safety net. Getting people the services they’re eligible for requires the government to create policy and build technology that are inclusive, portable, interoperable, and people-centric. Read our new field scan, “Building the Tech-Enabled Safety Net” to understand a dozen fintech and civic tech organizations working across fourteen safety net programs and showing what’s possible when modern technology is married to a consumer insights perspective.

Aspen Institute Financial Security Program
Policy Brief

A phased approach to modular contracting

Modular contracting doesn’t just mean that you break one procurement into several pieces. This article shows you how to take a modular approach with a single contract divided up into natural break points.

Ad Hoc
Non-Academic Article

6-Month Update: Delivering on the President’s Commitment to Transform Customer Experience

President Biden believes that every American—regardless of where you live, where you work, or who you are—should have simple, seamless, and secure access to the Federal services they need. Over the past six months, we’ve gotten off to a fast start translating the President’s historic Executive Order on customer experience into action. Today, at the half-year mark, we have more key updates to share.

Federal CX Team
Non-Academic Article

WIC Certification and Eligibility Resource and Best Practices Guide

The WIC Certification and Eligibility Resource and Best Practices Guide is a compilation of existing regulations and best practices that WIC state and local agencies may choose to use when determining eligibility for the program. The guide walks through the certification process.

Food and Nutrition Service, USDA
Government Documents

Saving Face: Investigating the Ethical Concerns of Facial Recognition Auditing

This paper explores design considerations and ethical tensions related to auditing of commercial facial processing technology.

Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society
Academic Article

SNAP State Options Report

SNAP statutes and regulations provide the state SNAP agency with certain options to tailor SNAP according to their respective operational considerations and policy preferences. This report summarizes 19 SNAP policy options (in effect as of Oct. 1, 2023) and waivers (implemented as of July 1, 2023) chosen by SNAP state agencies (50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Virgin Islands) in federal fiscal year (FY) 2023.

Food and Nutrition Service
Report

Streamlining SNAP for the Gig Economy

This issue brief explores how states can leverage existing policy to better support self-employed workers. The Simplified Self-Employment Deduction option available to state SNAP programs is a key example of one such supportive policy. This brief discusses the advantages of this policy option, and highlights the experiences of officials in Alabama, Maryland, Nebraska, and South Carolina, in addition to offering a roadmap for other states.

Benefits Data Trust
Policy Brief

Unemployment insurance modernization: Examples from states and territories in their unemployment insurance modernization journeys

The U.S. Department of Labor is working with states, territories, and the public to develop strategies to continuously improve the nation’s unemployment insurance (UI) systems. All of the work shown on this site to date came from the Claimant Experience Pilot engagement between U.S. Department of Labor, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the Arkansas Division of Workforce Services funded through ARPA.

U.S. Department of Labor
Government Documents

Four Lessons from Our Journey to Deliver Human-Centered Integrated Benefits

Code for America partnered with the CBPP, Civilla, and Nava to launch the Integrated Benefits Initiative, testing and piloting human-centered approaches to improve outcomes and learn what an optimal safety net could look like. This article describes key takeaways from short-term pilots implemented as part of this project.

Code for America
Non-Academic Article

Delivery-Driven Policy: Policy designed for the digital age

There is a key disconnect between policymakers’ intent and implementation of policies. A user-centric, iterative, and data-driven approach can result result in digital technology that provides much needed data and insights at a substantially lower cost.

Code for America
Report

Improving Unemployment Fraud Reporting with User Research

User research + design kit in for improving the UI fraud reporting experience, available in English and Spanish

U.S. Digital Response, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry
Toolkit

8 Tips for Governments to Mitigate Call Center Volume

Overwhelming unemployment rates during the pandemic created significant demand for state-based unemployment benefits. As a result of the increased applications, states are also experiencing an overwhelming volume of calls to their call centers. U.S. Digital Response has been working with states to mitigate problems arising from heavy demand on call centers. This article describes tangible steps state governments can take to manage call volume.

U.S. Digital Response
Non-Academic Article

Benefits Access for Student Success: A Toolkit For Leveraging Data to Find Eligible Students

Each year, millions of college students struggle to pay for their education and basic needs, including food, childcare, housing, healthcare, and internet service. Among those students are a disproportionate number of first-generation students and students of color. This toolkit aims to build institutional capacity to enable all students to put food on the table, improve health outcomes, focus on school, and graduate.

Benefits Data Trust
Toolkit

Human-Centered, Machine-Assisted: Ethically Deploying AI to Improve the Client Experience

In this interview, Code for America staff members share how client success, data science, and qualitative research teams work together to consider the responsible deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in responding to clients who seek assistance with three products.

Code for America
Non-Academic Article

Improving Users’ Experience With Online SNAP and Medicaid Systems

State and county agencies have made remarkable progress digitizing their forms and processes. But to take full advantage of online systems, agencies must also ensure that people can easily set up and sign into online accounts. This would not only benefit clients, but also significantly reduce the workload for caseworkers and administrators, allowing them to focus on clients that need more intensive in-person assistance.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Report

Biometric Identification Technologies: Considerations to Address Information Gaps and Other Stakeholder Concerns

Biometric identification technologies—such as facial recognition and fingerprinting—can affect underserved communities, including low-income and minority communities. GAO interviewed academics, advocacy groups, and technology experts to find out how.

Government Accountability Office
Report

The Time Tax: Why is so much American bureaucracy left to average citizens?

Article describing the “time tax,” the costs to people applying or benefits in terms of spending substantial amounts of time navigating user-unfriendly interfaces. The article describes the necessity of simplifying safety-net programs and cross-coordinating across various social service programs.

The Atlantic
Non-Academic Article

After the toolkit: anticipatory logics and the future of government

Building on the concept of anticipatory governance, this article aims to show how approaches associated with foresight and design can enact an anticipatory logic which is necessary for public administrations to achieve their goals in the face of uncertainty and dynamic environments.

Policy Design and Practice
Academic Article

Analysis: Digital Authentication and Identity Proofing Requirements in Unemployment Insurance Applications

In February 2023, the Digital Benefits Network at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation released a dataset documenting authentication and identity verification requirements that unemployment insurance (UI) applicants encounter across the United States. This resource outlines high-level observations from the data and more information about the research process.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

Rules as Code Demo Day | Demo 3: Mes Aides | Thomas Guillet

The first half of Rules as Code Demo Day was wrapped up with Thomas Guillet who has contributed to Open Fisca France and beta.gouv. He demoed the code for Mes Aides—or My Benefits—which is France’s social benefit simulator that leverages open source rule models for over 600 benefits while keeping the displayed complexity to its minimum.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Video

Promising Practices for Digital Identity in Public Benefits

This piece highlights promising design patterns for account creation and identity proofing in public benefits applications. The publication also identifies areas where additional evidence, resources, and coordinated federal guidance may help support equitable implementations of authentication and identity proofing, enabling agencies to balance access and security.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
Non-Academic Article

Lost in the Labyrinth: Helping Parents Navigate Early Care and Education Programs

Overview: Families with the youngest children stand to gain the most from improved access to benefits, yet persistent fragmentation in early care and education (ECE) programs creates challenges in finding, applying for, and enrolling in services. As a result, families miss out on critical opportunities for their children at the time when these ECE programs have the highest impact. The New Practice Lab examined what these missed opportunities look like up close in one state and collected data on the fractured system of programs and funding streams across all fifty states to begin illustrating the complexity that families face. Ultimately, we see wide variation across states with plenty of opportunities to increase access to information, simplify application procedures, and create more equitable access to these services.

New Practice Lab at New America
Policy Brief

Facial Recognition Technologies: A Primer

This primer is written for a non-technical audience to increase understanding of the terminology, applications, and difficulties of evaluating facial recognition technologies.

Algorithmic Justice League
Report

What Works Cities Assessment Guide

What Works Cities helps local governments improve residents’ lives by using data and evidence effectively to tackle pressing challenges. The Certification Assessment helps cities benchmark their progress and develop a roadmap for improvement.

What Works Cities
Toolkit

Rules as Code Demo Day | Demo 7: MITRE Corporation (CCASH) | Joe Ditre and Frank Ruscil

MITRE’s Joe Ditre and Frank Ruscil demoed the code for the Comprehensive Careers and Supports for Households (C-CASH) at Rules as Code Demo Day. The MITRE team expanded the accessibility of the Policy Rules Database and the Cost-of-Living Database (the prior demo) by creating a web service API and a front-end Window’s application called C-CASH Analytic Tool (CAT). CAT provides a more scalable, flexible, and portable functionality which allows end-users to generate various households to run eligibility scenarios across different U.S. counties and states. They are currently working to create a national data hub and analytics tool, starting with utilizing U.S. Census data and populating the data warehouse by pushing large amounts of data through the PRD.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Video

Benefit Eligibility Rules as Code: Reducing the Gap Between Policy and Service Delivery for the Safety Net

The complexity of eligibility rules creates a burden for state and local government agencies, delivery organizations, and policymakers who interpret and implement policy to deliver benefits in their jurisdictions. This report explores how the U.S. federal government could improve the efficiency and equity of benefits delivery to Americans in need by applying new approaches to eligibility requirements for core safety net programs, and using a “rules as code” approach to improve digitization of legislation and policy documents.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

Simplified, mobile-friendly SNAP application increases application rates

From April 13, 2020 to July 31, 2020, individuals in Kentucky who were determined to be likely eligible for food stamps after completing mRelief’s eligibility screener were randomly assigned to be in either the treatment or the control group. mRelief’s simplified application led to a statistically significant increase in SNAP application completion - from 32% in the control group (status quo) to 59% in the treated group (mRelief).

University of Utah
Academic Article

Increasing Older Adult Access to SNAP

This brief highlights the complex journey that older adults experience when applying for and enrolling in SNAP, including the major barriers and solutions that improve access along the way.

AARP Foundation
Fact Sheet

Recent Developments in Unemployment Insurance Modernization

The UI Technology Coordinating Coalition hosted a virtual conversation on April 13, 2023 focused on recent developments in unemployment insurance (UI) modernization efforts with guests from the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of UI Modernization and the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Video

Identity Fraud Victim Redress Process and Systems

This report provides specific actions the federal government could take to reduce identity fraud and establish a whole-of-government victim redress approach.

Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, MITRE
Report

States Are Using Much-Needed Temporary Flexibility in SNAP to Respond to COVID-19 Challenges

Since March 2020, states have been using temporary SNAP (food stamps) flexibility to provide emergency benefit supplements, and ease program administration during the pandemic. These options have allowed states to deliver more food assistance to struggling families, help manage intense administrative demands, and ensure that participants maintain much-needed benefits.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Fact Sheet

The Ad Hoc Research Thinking Field Guide

This field guide is for digital services and technology leaders working at the federal, state, or local government level. It describes a way of applying research approaches to strategic decision making across digital services.

Ad Hoc
Toolkit

The difference between digital identity, identification, and ID

This style guide from Caribou Digital outlines how to talk about identity in a digital age.

Caribou Digital
Non-Academic Article

AI-Powered SNAP Modernization

This report explores how AI is currently used, and how it might be used in the future, to support administrative actions that agency staff complete when processing customers’ SNAP cases. In addition to desk and primary research, this brief was informed by input from APHSA’s wide network of state, county, and city members and national partners in the human services and related sectors.

American Public Human Services Association
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Can States Finally Fix Their Unemployment Systems?

Though the economy is rebounding, it is still necessary for states to reform their unemployment systems to provide relief to millions of Americans, as many sectors are still slow to recover.

Governing
Non-Academic Article

Design Justice Network

Website of The Design Justice Network, a home for people who are committed to embodying and practicing the Design Justice Network Principles.

Design Justice Network
Organization Website

Integrated Benefits Initiative: Best Practices in Texting

Code for America offers government agencies a general overview of getting started with implementing text messaging services for clear, responsive communication during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Code for America
Toolkit
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Automation + AI
Text Messaging
Data Sharing
Outreach + Awareness
Eligibility
Applying + Enrolling
Buying Design + Technology Services
Maintaining Benefits
Human-Centered Design
Digitizing Policy
Digital Services
Diversity, Equity + Inclusion
Policy Analysis
Digital Identity
Basic Income
CCDF: Child Care and Development Fund
COVID-19 Assistance
CTC: Child Tax Credit
EITC: Earned Income Tax Credit
Housing
LIHEAP
Medicaid/CHIP
Other Supplemental Nutrition Programs
P-EBT
Paid Leave
SSDI: Social Security Disability Insurance
SSI: Supplemental Security Income
TANF: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Tax Assistance
UI: Unemployment Insurance
Veterans Benefits
WIC: Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children
SNAP: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Executive Branch
Academic
Community Members
Community-based Organization
Legislative Branch
Non-profit
Private
Government Agency
Federal/National
State/Provincial
County
Local/Municipal
Territorial
Tribal/Indigenous