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COVID-19’s Impact on the Social Safety Net

California’s SNAP program faced record application volume due to the COVID-19 crisis, and other states must anticipate similar demand. This post summarizes key takeaways from GetCalFresh’s real-time data and client communications, and offers recommendations for how other states can implement effective responses.

Code for America
News

Building and Reusing Open Source Tools for Government

A primer by New America for government entities thinking about embracing open-source solutions. This report is based on interviews with experts in the field, the organization’s work on piloting open source projects with partners around the world, and a review of nearly 50 reports, documents, and resources on the creation and usage of open source software.

New America
Report

Elevating Family Input in TANF and Child Support Programs: Resources for Program Staff, Leaders, and Families

This expansive toolkit provides guidance, real world examples, and resources to help TANF and child support programs engage the families they serve in improving service delivery, policy, and program operations.

Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation, Administration for Children & Families
Toolkit

Evaluating CX with Survey Design

In the Fall of 2022, the USDOL Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization (OUIM) consulted with the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) to provide hands-on support with IT modernization and customer experience strategy. Primary discussions focused on making informed product, service, and business decisions based on qualitative and quantitative data— how might IDES leverage existing data streams to identify the most pressing technology issues in their unemployment insurance system, and how might IDES act upon this information in a timely and impactful manner?

U.S. Department of Labor
Government Documents

Mecklenburg County, North Carolina's Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Supports Impact Report

Through the Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Supports program, Mecklenburg County, NC leveraged a Food Security Navigator model and data analysis to increase access to nutrition supports. This report documents best practices and lessons learned from their project.

American Public Human Services Association
Report

Platforms: More value, more quickly, more securely

Adopting a platform strategy should be a key component of how government agencies design and deliver digital services.

Ad Hoc
Non-Academic Article

Discovery Sprint Guide

This guide explains the U.S. Digital Service’s “discovery sprint,” a process by which teams can quickly build a common understanding of the status of complex organization, system, or service.

U.S. Digital Service
Toolkit

Technology in the public sector and the future of government work

This report explores technologies that have the potential to significantly affect employment and job quality in the public sector, the factors that drive choices about which technologies are adopted and how they are implemented, how technology will change the experience of public sector work, and what kinds of interventions can protect against potential downsides of technology use in the public sector. The report categories technologies into five overlapping categories including manual task automation, process automation, automated decision-making systems, integrated data systems, and electronic monitoring.

UC Berkeley Labor Center
Report

The Complete Financial Lives of Workers

If work is to provide a real pathway to financial security, public and workplace benefits need to reflect the realities of 21st century employment, which includes a workforce increasingly required to engage in nonstandard and sometimes multiple jobs and where job stability is not guaranteed. Download “The Complete Financial Lives of Workers: A Holistic Exploration of Work and Public and Workplace Benefit Arrangements” today to learn: - Four conditions of work and benefits that allow LMI workers to thrive – informed by front-line insights from Aspen’s Consumer Insights Collaborative - A new matrix to unpack and highlight the major connections between work and benefit arrangements and workers’ prospects for financial security - Five key recommendations to build a benefits system that meets the needs of all workers and addresses the inequities observed in the current labor market and benefits systems

Aspen Institute Financial Security Program
Graphic

Building Human-Centered Benefits Renewal Processes with Client Equity in Mind

Lessons from piloting expanded ex parte renewals in Minnesota

Code for America and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Case Study

ideas42 Methodology

This article introduces ideas42, a non-profit behavioral research and design firm applying insights from behavioral sciences, including behavioral economics (BE), social psychology, and other disciplines, for social good. Their behavioral design methodology is human-centered, but it incorporates scientific insights and iterative testing, applying observations about how people choose and act from experimental academic research to inform qualitative research.

The Communication Initiative Network
Toolkit

State Software Budgeting Handbook

Handbook by 18F designed for executives, budget specialists, legislators, and other “non-technical” decision-makers who fund or oversee state government technology projects that receive federal funding and implement the necessary technology to support federal programs. It aids in setting projects up for success by asking the right questions, identifying the right outcomes, and equally important, empowering decision-makers with a basic knowledge of the fundamental principles of modern software design.

18F
Toolkit

Wisconsin Partners Up for Unemployment System Overhaul

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development announces a partnership with 18F, an office within the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, to begin a full-scale modernization of its unemployment insurance (UI) system.

Government Technology
Non-Academic Article

Using human-centered design and low-code tech to inform unemployment insurance policy implementation

As the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and prioritizes economic recovery efforts, governments must deliver critical benefits to the American people at scale. By applying human-centered design principles, policy makers can create systems that help people complete application forms more efficiently while delivering benefits more quickly to those who need it the most. Through a partnership with the Department of Labor, U.S. Digital Response deployed a team of staff, volunteers, and fellows from the Google.org Fellowship Program to produce a set of research-based recommendations for how to retroactively determine if claimants were eligible for unemployment benefits. Watch a live demo and hear about how developing an almost fully automated, low-code solution aimed to reduce both claimant and administrative burden. This virtual breakout session was presented at Code for America Summit 2022 in the Policy + Administration track.

U.S. Digital Response
Video

The Privacy-Bias Tradeoff: Data Minimization and Racial Disparity Assessments in U.S. Government

An emerging concern in algorithmic fairness is the tension with privacy interests. Data minimization can restrict access to protected attributes, such as race and ethnicity, for bias assessment and mitigation. This paper examines how this “privacy-bias tradeoff” has become an important battleground for fairness assessments in the U.S. government and provides rich lessons for resolving these tradeoffs.

2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’23)
Academic Article

A Public Transformed? Welfare Reform as Policy Feedback

This article analyzes the strategic use of public policy as a tool for reshaping public opinion. Though progressive revisionists in the 1990s argued that reforming welfare could produce a public more willing to invest in anti-poverty efforts, welfare reform in the 1990s did little to shift public opinion. This study investigates the general conditions under which mass feedback effects should be viewed as more or less likely.

American Political Science Review
Academic Article

Using Data Matching and Targeted Outreach to Enroll Families With Young Children in WIC

WIC enrollment has declined over the past decade, but evidence from randomized control trials indicates that using data from other programs to identify WIC-eligible families and following up with text-based outreach can boost program participation.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Case Study

Universal Design 101 Recording

Initially created for and shared with staff at the Administration for Children and Families, this webinar provides an introduction to Universal Design, covering plain language, accessibility, user research, and Agile development.

Digital Service at the Administration for Children and Families
Video

Controlling Large Language Models: A Primer

Concerns over risks from generative artificial intelligence systems have increased significantly over the past year, driven in large part by the advent of increasingly capable large language models. But, how do AI developers attempt to control the outputs of these models? This primer outlines four commonly used techniques and explains why this objective is so challenging.

Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), Georgetown University
Report

Data Sharing to Build Effective and Efficient Benefits Systems: A Playbook for State and Local Agencies

This playbook is designed to help government and other key sectors use data sharing to illuminate who is not accessing benefits, connect under-enrolled populations to vital assistance, and make the benefits system more efficient for agencies and participants alike. It is a step-by-step guide to conducting smooth and efficient data sharing projects that are permissible and secure.

Benefits Data Trust
Report

A tool to drive toward equitable policy advocacy approaches and outcomes

A modification of Bolder Advocacy’s ACT!Quick capacity self-assessment tool to incorporate additional equity-centered capacities, engage community authentically, and conduct research in culturally responsive ways.

American Evaluation Association
Non-Academic Article

Improving Access to Public Benefits and Customer Experience: Key Actions and Best Practices

Comprehensive and sustained improvement in benefits access and customer experience requires changes across policy, operations, technology, staffing, procurement, and more. This guide offers a collection of actions and best practices for states to apply.

Office of Management and Budget, Aspen Financial Security Program
Report

Eligible Low-Income Children Missing Out on Crucial WIC Benefits During Pandemic

The share of WIC-eligible families participating in the program has declined, though the number of individuals eligible for WIC has likely grown substantially. By working together, state WIC, Medicaid, and SNAP leaders can use data to assess the extent to which WIC is reaching eligible families and enroll more of them.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Report

An Early Look at the Impacts of the Response to COVID-19 on Medicaid Churn

Given that the effects of the COVID-19 crisis will likely last for a while, it is crucial that states continue to prioritize coverage continuity to further improve the overall health outcomes of their enrollees and reduce administrative burden.

Benefits Data Trust
News

Algorithmic Accountability: A Primer

The primer–originally prepared for the Progressive Congressional Caucus’ Tech Algorithm Briefing–explores the trade-offs and debates about algorithms and accountability across several key ethical dimensions, including fairness and bias; opacity and transparency; and lack of standards for auditing.

Data & Society
Report

Building a Stronger Foundation for American Families: Options for Child Tax Credit Reform

Our existing maze of family tax benefits — including the CTC, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC), and head of household (HoH) filing status — has several structural deficiencies that make overhauling the system a prerequisite for any effort to boost support for families with children. The report offers several options for expanding and streamlining family tax benefits to address these issues.

Niskanen Center
Non-Academic Article

Designing an eligibility screener tool for Montana WIC

This case study describes Nava's with the state of Montana’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) agency to build an eligibility screener tool.

Nava Public Benefit Corporation
Case Study

Rules as Code Demo Day | Demo 2: NYC Benefits Platform Screening API | Song Hia and Ethan Lo

At Rules as Code Demo Day we heard from Song Hia of the NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity and Ethan Lo of the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation who demoed the NYC Benefits Platform Screening API which provides machine-readable calculations and criteria for benefits screening that power the ACCESS NYC screening questionnaire. This makes it easier for NYC residents to discover multiple benefits they may be eligible for. The City is now extending the API to support the new MyCity platform, a one-stop shop for all services and benefits.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Video

Me, Myself, and My Digital Double: Extending Sara Greene’s Stealing (Identity) From the Poor to the Challenges of Identity Verification

This essay explores the challenges of identity verification and suggests several paths forward for more equitable systems.

Minnesota Law Review
Academic Article

CSNS New Jersey: Sharing Nutrition Program Data to Raise WIC Enrollment

This report outlines how the New Jersey Department of Human Services’ Division of Family Development (DFD) and the Department of Health (NJDOH) are increasing SNAP & WIC co-enrollment through data sharing, outreach, and systems integration.

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

What is Digital Identity?

This short resource introduces the term digital identity and provides an overview of core questions related to the topic.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
Report

Helping people access government services through Login.gov

This case study describes how Nava is working with the General Services Administration, Fearless, and the U.S. Postal Service to design, build, and deliver a new in-person identity verification service to nearly 20,000 USPS locations

Nava Public Benefit Corporation
Case Study

An Updated Measure of Poverty: ReDrawing the Line

This report recommends updating the methodology used by the Census Bureau to calculate the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to reflect household basic needs and replace the current Official Poverty Measure as the primary statistical measure of poverty. The report assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the SPM and provides recommendations for updating its methodology and expanding its use in recognition of the needs of most American families such as medical care, childcare, and housing costs.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
No items found.

Rules as Code Community of Practice

The DBN’s Rules as Code Community of Practice (RaC CoP) creates a shared learning and exchange space for people working on public benefits eligibility and enrollment systems — and specifically people tackling the issue of how policy becomes software code. The RaC CoP brings together cross-sector experts who share approaches, examples, and challenges. Participants are from state, local, tribal, territorial, and federal government agencies, nonprofit organizations, academia, and private sector companies. We host recurring roundtable conversations and an email group for asynchronous updates, insights, and assistance.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Organization Website

Encouraging Uptake of Benefits with Psychological Ownership Messaging

A brief report on our quantitative research about messages that increase people's take-up of government benefits by making them feel like those benefits belong to them.

Code for America
Report

Mass Layoff in Maine: Lessons Learned from the Maine Department of Labor and Peer Workforce Navigators

This report explores the Maine Department of Labor’s (MDOL) remarkable response to this layoff through collaboration with the Peer Workforce Navigator project—a coalition of community-based organizations in partnership with the MDOL—which made a huge difference in the lives of these laid off workers. The report also examines aspects of the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) system that might be improved to account for similar situations in the future.

The Century Foundation
Report

Executive Summary: SNAP Waivers and Adaptations During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Survey of State Agency Perspectives in 2020

SNAP Waivers and Adaptations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Survey of State Agency Perspectives in 2020 is a study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Health and Social Policy (IHSP) based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA). This research seeks to understand perspectives from state SNAP administrators on the successes, challenges, and lessons learned from waivers and flexibilities used to preserve equitable access to SNAP during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on state agency survey responses, this report summarizes key findings from the first calendar year of pandemic response and provides policy considerations for the future of SNAP. This research was supported by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Johns Hopkins Institute for Health and Social Policy, Health and Social Policy, American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Report

Listening to SNAP Participants to Improve Access to the Expanded Child Tax Credit

Well-designed, user-focused tools that allow for simple application are key to ensuring that families most in need receive the Child Tax Credit. Reaching these households will require a robust effort from the IRS to create user-friendly tools in partnership with organizations with a direct connection to eligible recipients.

Propel, University of Michigan Poverty Solutions
Academic Article

U.S. Digital Service (USDS) Medicaid Renewals Playbook

This playbook was created by the U.S. Digital Service as a rapid-response guide for civic technologists providing direct technical assistance to states during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) Unwinding. The content in this playbook focuses on strategies to rapidly decrease the burden of Medicaid renewals on members of the public and state staff.

U.S. Digital Service
No items found.

Benefits of Interoperability in the Health & Human Services System

The A-87 Exception presents a unique opportunity to transform the health and human services delivery system. It delivers an integrated funding mechanism which allows good business design to apply across a broad range of programs and services. It also provides benefits to states, customers, and federal partners, ranging from cost containment, to improved customer service, enhanced security and privacy, program integrity, and better outcomes for children and families.

American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Report

Lessons Churned: Measuring the Impact of Churn in Health and Human Services Programs on Participants and State and Local Agencies

Paper presenting preliminary lessons learned about SNAP churn derived from states participating in the Work Support Strategies project. It defines churn and outlines its consequences, explores approaches to measuring churns and looks at possible approaches to reduce churn.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Report

How Data Sharing Can Improve Equitable Access to Public Programs

Accessing safety net benefits can involve complicated and duplicative processes that create barriers to access. Using cross-enrollment strategies can minimize the difficulties community members face in getting access to life-saving resources.

Alluma
Toolkit

NCDHHS: Cross-Enrollment in SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid

In this presentation, team members from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services provide an overview of the implementation process for cross enrollment with SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid in North Carolina.

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
Video

Digital Identity and the Federal Government: Recent Actions and Interest

In recent years, the federal government has taken notice of cybersecurity, identity management, authentication, and identity proofing issues. This short resource guide highlights some key actions at the federal level around digital identity topics in 2022.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
Report

UX research during crisis: understanding rapidly evolving user needs to inform responsive design

Important considerations for understanding user needs to inform responsive design in rapidly changing contexts are discussed, including how context, threat perception, decision-making, and crisis affects disaster management and UX research.

UX Collective
Non-Academic Article

The Wait List as Redistributive Policy: Access and Burdens in the Subsidized Childcare System

This article theorizes the wait list as an underexamined vehicle of administrative burden. Focusing on the example of subsidized chidl care, the article's findings suggest wait lists as understudied but consequential sites of opaque policymaking that shape access to critical social services and the legibility of unmet need.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
Academic Article

Want to design policies that really work? Test them on the users who need them first

A step-by-step guide to how New Jersey used plain language and user-testing to improve the state’s paid family and medical leave program

New America
Case Study

Story-driven experience research on pandemic unemployment

Dana Chisnell describes work leading a team of researchers to interview people from across the US on their experiences applying for unemployment and other benefits during the pandemic.

Dana Chisnell
Presentation

The Consequences of Decentralization: Inequality in Safety Net Provision in the Post–Welfare Reform Era

Study examining cross-state inequality in social safety net programs due to decentralized social provision. The authors find substantial cross-state inequality in provision, with increased inequality due to the devolution of authority under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).

The University of Chicago Press Journals
Academic Article

Trustworthy AI (TAI) Playbook

This playbook is an initial step by the Office of the Chief AI Officer (OCAIO) to support trustworthy AI development.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Toolkit

Text to Connect: Legal + Policy Considerations for Using Text Message Outreach to Reduce SNAP Churn

This guide is the third part of a series designed to help SNAP administrators implement a text messaging program to reduce SNAP churn. This guide is intended to provide a general overview of the national statutory and regulatory landscape governing the legality of sending large volumes of text messages and sharing client information.

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

Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology

This book presents a blueprint for how governments and nonprofits can utilize digital technology to solve pressing twenty-first century issues.

Tara Dawson McGuinness, Hana Schank
Book

Dispelling Myths About Artificial Intelligence for Government Service Delivery

Directed at government practitioners, this resource addresses common misconceptions about artificial intelligence (AI) and explains the current state of technology.

Center for Democracy and Technology
Report

How to use product operations to scale the impact of government digital services

Ad Hoc has found that product operations can help scale impact by putting objective indicators at the center of product decision-making. The team has seen success in supporting product thinking at agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where they made it easier for Veterans to access employment and education assistance and for caregivers to receive needed support.

Ad Hoc
Non-Academic Article

Communicating About the Social Implications of AI: A FrameWorks Strategic Brief

Research identified five key obstacles that researchers, activists, and advocates face in efforts to open critical public conversations about AI’s relationship with inequity and advance needed policies.

Frameworks Initiative
No items found.

Using Human-Centered Design to Integrate Benefit Applications

This guide illustrates how agencies can use human-centered-design practices to revise and integrate benefits applications.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

States Can Reduce Medicaid’s Administrative Burdens to Advance Health and Racial Equity

This report outlines strategies to reduce administrative burdens and expand Medicaid participation and advance racial and health equity. The report also offers historical context on Medicaid eligibility.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, The Center for Law and Social Policy
Report

Civic Service Design Tools & Tactics

Website with various articles regarding civic service design tools and tactics, case studies, and other articles.

NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity
Toolkit

Toolkit: Moving through the Value Curve Stage

Human services is experiencing many of the same challenges that all modern systems face, including rapidly changing economic forces, social structure, demographics, communications and technology. Leaders from all sectors of our field must be able to adapt to this changing environment, and lead a culture change within their organization that supports a more collaborative, creative and innovative way to deliver services in communities across the nation. Indeed, it is impossible to deliver a truly holistic platform of solutions and supports to people, families and communities in need of them, without a highly collaborative partnership approach. This approach results in more efficient and effective intake and eligibility platforms, more effective casework and engagement practices that respond well to any and all root causes for the challenges faced by the people we serve, and more powerful, far-reaching advocacy and capacity-building efforts that are much larger than the needs of any individual or family case.

American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Toolkit

Unpacking Inequities in Unemployment Insurance

The New Practice Lab interviewed Black and Latinx workers that lost their job or income due to COVID-19 and their experience navigating UI. They synthesized their findings in this report, discussing how compounding inequities that exist in the unemployment insurance system make it less accessible for workers of color.

New America
Report

FCC Training on Public Benefits Texting

Federal Communications Commission present on how state and local agencies can legally use SMS messaging to engage with public benefits applicants and recipients, including compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

Performance.gov and Federal Communications Commission
Video

Digital Authentication and Identity Proofing in Unemployment Insurance (UI) 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 unemployment insurance applications.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Dataset

NIST Digital Identity Guidelines

These guidelines from the National Institutes of Standard and Technology provide technical requirements for federal agencies implementing digital identity services.

National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST)
Report

Fewer Burdens but Greater Inequality? Reevaluating the Safety Net through the Lens of Administrative Burden

This paper examines changes in administrative burden in U.S. social safety net programs, or the negative encounters with the state that people experience when trying to access and use the benefits for which they are eligible. While overall burdens have declined in most targeted programs, there is evidence of increasing inequality regarding who faces these burdens.

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Academic Article

Overcoming Barriers: Finding Better Ways to Ask GetCalFresh Applicants About Income

County workers typically spend most of their time trying to get income information right during eligibility interviews. This article provides several recommendations for asking about income, accounting for cognitive biases, under-reporting, and complexities in reporting income.

Code for America
Non-Academic Article

Federal Field Guide

Few large government software projects are successful, as current ecosystems in place at agencies do not support agile development practices. This guide provides instructions to federal agencies on how to effectively budget for, procure, and oversee software development projects.

18F
Toolkit

How to Improve Unemployment Insurance for People with Disabilities

The report beings by briefly describing the challenge that disabled workers face in accessing UI and the benefits of reforming the system to better serve these workers. The report then presents a list of considerations for UI reform in the areas of administrative process and technology improvements as well as considerations for policy change.

The Century Foundation
Report

Rules as Code Demo Day | Demo 1: 18F Eligibility APIs Initiative | Alex Soble and Mike Gintz

We kicked off Rules as Code Demo Day with Alex Soble of 18F and Mike Gintz of 10x presenting their Eligibility APIs Initiative that explores whether APIs and rules as code might improve the efficiency and effectiveness with which federal public benefits programs communicate their policy to states. They demonstrated their original prototype, and how the open source code has now been extended into several initiatives.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
Video

A cost/benefit analysis of a Rules as Code-enabled transformation

This piece explores an example cost/benefit analysis of a Rules as Code-enabled transformation.

The Mandarain
Non-Academic Article

Data Coordination at SNAP and Medicaid Agencies: A National Landscape Analysis

Benefits Data Trust (BDT), in collaboration with the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), conducted a nationwide analysis of how states coordinate across Medicaid and SNAP programs to streamline access to benefits. Between June and August of 2022, BDT and CHCS collected 114 survey responses from Medicaid and SNAP programs in 46 states and the District of Columbia.

Benefits Data Trust, Center for Health Care Strategies
Report

The New Practice Lab’s Racial Equity Framework

New America’s New Practice Lab discusses insights into racial inequities within the Unemployment Insurance System, and provides recommendations its framework for rectifying inequality in policies and programs moving forward.

New America
Toolkit

Designing an API prototype for Montana WIC

This case study describes Nava's work with the state of Montana’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) agency to build an API prototype, which is part of Nava's larger work inform a national API standard.

Nava Public Benefit Corporation
Case Study

Why Californians need food assistance: The stories behind the numbers

Californians who receive food assistance come from all backgrounds, but many share a similar story: they were barely getting by financially when they were tipped into crisis by an unexpected expense or loss of income. This site shares their stories.

Code for America
Fact Sheet

A Guide to Responsible and Efficient Use of Generative Tools

This video shows you how to get started with using Generative AI tools, including Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT, in your work as public sector professionals.

Innovate US
Video

A Snapshot of Artificial Intelligence Procurement Challenges

Artificial intelligence promises exciting new opportunities for the government to make policy, deliver services and engage with residents. But government procurement practices need to adapt if we are to ensure that rapidly-evolving AI tools meet intended purposes, avoid bias, and minimize risks to people, organizations, and communities. This report lays out five distinct challenges related to procuring AI in government.

The GovLab
Report

Against Predictive Optimization: On the Legitimacy of Decision-Making Algorithms that Optimize Predictive Accuracy

This academic paper examines predictive optimization, a category of decision-making algorithms that use machine learning (ML) to predict future outcomes of interest about individuals. Through this examination, the authors explore how predictive optimization can raise concerns that make its use illegitimate and challenge claims about predictive optimization's accuracy, efficiency, and fairness.

Princeton University, Microsoft Research
Academic Article

Unemployment Insurance Equitable Access Toolkit

The Unemployment Insurance Equitable Access Toolkit contains common equity recommendations, promising practices, and insights, represented visually as a different floor of an agency office building, compiled in one interactive document.

U.S. Department of Labor
Toolkit

Guidance on Adding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Questions to State Medicaid and CHIP Applications for Health Coverage

Starting November 1, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) began asking three new optional sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) questions on the single, streamlined application developed by the Secretary. This guidance gives instructs states on the process for modifying SOGI questions in their applications.

Center on Medicare and Medicaid Services
Government Documents

The CUTGroup Book: Civic User Testing Group as a New Model for UX Testing, Digital Skills Development, and Community Engagement in Civic Tech

The CUTGroup book explains how civic user testing (paying residents to test civic apps) can allow for more community engagement in civic tech. This book covers how to do UX testing, community engagement, and digital skills in one civic tech system.

The CUTGroup Book
Toolkit

Envisioning a Human-AI collaborative system to transform policies into decision models

This paper introduces the problem of semi-automatically building decision models from eligibility policies for social services, and presents an initial emerging approach to shorten the route from policy documents to executable, interpretable and standardised decision models using AI, NLP and Knowledge Graphs. There is enormous potential of AI to assist government agencies and policy experts in scaling the production of both human-readable and machine executable policy rules, while improving transparency, interpretability, traceability and accountability of the decision making.

IBM Research
No items found.

Better Identity in America: A Blueprint for State Policymakers

In December 2022, the Better Identity Coalition released a set of policy recommendations for State government officials, focused on ways governments can improve the privacy and security of digital identity solutions.

The Better Identity Coalition
Report

CSNS Kansas: Forming Connections Between SNAP and WIC to Tackle Food Insecurity

Together, the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF) and Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) are working to design and build a sustainable process to improve cross-enrollment for families eligible for both the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). This report outlines how Kansas will integrate data matches between SNAP and WIC—as well as targeted outreach— within the ongoing business processes of the agencies to help streamline the experience of accessing nutrition supports for clients. These functions will contribute to the agencies’ shared goal of reducing rates of food insecurity in Kansas.

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

Access Denied: Faulty Automated Background Checks Freeze Out Renters

This reporting explores how algorithms used to screen prospective tenants, including those waiting for public housing, can block renters from housing based on faulty information.

The Markup
News

SNAP Takeup and Targeting

Rigorous research shows that targeted outreach and application assistance triples Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) enrollment among people ages 60 and over. This randomized experiment involved over 30,000 Pennsylvania seniors, and found that directly informing seniors about SNAP dramatically increased SNAP participation.

Benefits Data Trust
Non-Academic Article

Looking before we leap: Exploring AI and data science ethics review process

This report explores the role that academic and corporate Research Ethics Committees play in evaluating AI and data science research for ethical issues, and also investigates the kinds of common challenges these bodies face.

Ada Lovelace Institute, University of Exeter’s Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Alan Turing Institute
Report

The Ad Hoc Government Digital Services Playbook

A playbook by AdHoc for agencies ready to replace enterprise software patterns with proven techniques from the world of commercial software. These plays can better equip teams with the practices that create resilient, flexible, and customer-friendly digital services.

Ad Hoc
Toolkit

Analysis of Robotic Process Automation in SNAP: Three Case Studies

This study examines the use of robotic process automation (RPA) technologies by three state agencies—Georgia, New Mexico, and Connecticut—to administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). RPA is software that integrates with other programs to automatically complete repetitive processes that normally are performed by humans.

USDA Food and Nutrition Service, Insight Policy Research, Inc.
Government Documents

Technology, Accessibility, and the Child Tax Credit

Code for America describes its work building GetCTC, an e-filer that allows people to file simplified tax returns as specified in the revenue procedure required for the Child Tax Credit.

Code for America
Case Study

Use Cases for Robotic Process Automation in UI Claims Processing

For the past year, modernization teams at the Department of Labor (DOL) have been helping states identify opportunities to automate rote, non-discretionary, manual tasks, with the goal of helping them speed up the time that it takes to process claims. This post provides more context on Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and potential use cases in unemployment insurance.

U.S. Department of Labor
Government Documents

Unpacking the White House blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights

On December 5, 2022, an expert panel, including representatives from the White House, unpacked what’s included in the AI Bill of Rights, and explored how to operationalize such guidance among consumers, developers, and other users designing and implementing automated decisions.

Brookings Institution
Presentation

Public Benefits Delivery & Consumer Protection

This Issue Spotlight explores the challenges that recipients of public benefits programs offering cash assistance encounter in accessing funds through financial products or services, with a specific focus on assistance provided on prepaid cards.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Government Documents

Building Healthier Lives Through Increased SNAP Participation

This fact sheet describes a study demonstrating that Benefits Data Trust’s Outreach and Application Assistance increased SNAP participation more than seven-fold, reducing Medicaid spending and improving health in North Carolina.

Benefits Data Trust
Fact Sheet

Increasing Data Analytics Capacity in State TANF Agencies: The TANF Data Collaborative Approach

Government agencies at all levels collect administrative data in the course of their day-to-day operations. While such information has been used to determine effectiveness through program evaluations for many years, program administrators view it increasingly as a valuable resource that can also be used to improve program performance. For example, administrative data from employment and public benefits programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) can offer insights into families’ unmet needs and ways to improve services.

MDRC, Coleridge Initiative
Policy Brief

Digital Identity Risk Assessment Playbook

This playbook is a method to apply the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-63-3 Digital Identity Guidelines. Federal agencies can perform a Digital Identity Risk Assessment (DIRA) to determine the appropriate identity, authenticator, or federation level outlined to access an application. While this playbook was written for U.S. Federal Agencies, it can be tailored to fit any organization.

U.S. General Services Administration, U.S. Federal CIO Council
Government Documents

Conducting Outreach for Benefits Cross Enrollment

This resource outlines strategies for cross-enrollment outreach, which can break down silos between programs and reach applicants who may be eligible for under-enrolled benefits programs.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

The Cash Assistance Implementation Playbook

The purpose of this document is to outline possible technical approaches to supporting a cash assistance program. The report aims to both capture individual approaches as well as overarching insights taken from across the approaches taken by different organizations.

New America
Toolkit

Bias-Free Language

The guidelines for bias-free language contain both general guidelines for writing about people without bias across a range of topics and specific guidelines that address the individual characteristics of age, disability, gender, participation in research, racial and ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality.

American Psychological Association (APA)
Toolkit

Closing the AI accountability gap: defining an end-to-end framework for internal algorithmic auditing

This paper introduces a framework for algorithmic auditing that supports artificial intelligence system development end-to-end, to be applied throughout the internal organization development lifecycle.

ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
Academic Article

Cross-Sector Insights From the Rules as Code Community of Practice

In this report, the Digital Benefits Network shares learnings from the Rules as Code Community of Practice. Insights are grouped along core themes expressed by cross-sector practitioners, including complexity in policies, interest in sharing knowledge, tools, and code, the need for more training and technical assistance, and willingness to collaborate on an open standard for writing rules and developing a shared code library.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
Report

Re-Envisioning TANF: Toward an Anti-Racist Program That Meaningfully Serves Families

An America where no one experiences poverty is possible. Already, the U.S. has programs with the potential to make this vision a reality, including programs that provide cash assistance, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The current TANF program provides very little cash assistance and is marked by stark racial disparities, but it has the potential to reduce child poverty, increase economic security, and advance racial equity. This report offers a vision for an anti-racist approach to the TANF program, with new statutory goals and policy recommendations to advance racial justice.

Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality: Economic Security & Opportunity Initiative
Report
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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