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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

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

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

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

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

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

Hawai'i's Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Supports Impact Report

As part of the Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Supports program, Hawai’i's Department of Human Services, Department of Health, and the Children’s Healthy Living Center at the University of Hawai’i have advanced interagency collaboration to deliver nutrition benefits more effectively to families with young children. This project streamlined data sharing between SNAP and WIC, enhancing cross-enrollment processes. This report documents best practices and lessons learned from their project.

American Public Human Services Association
Report

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

SNAP Online: A Review of State Government SNAP Websites

There is significant variation amongst states’ SNAP websites and their online services. This report summarizes the types of services available and which states offer them.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Non-Academic Article

Sharing Government Software: How Agencies are Cooperatively Building Mission-Critical Software

This report reviews the features of intergovernmental software cooperatives, examines several different examples, looks at different categories of cooperatives and their governance structures, and inventories known cooperatives both within and outside of the United States. Agencies rethinking how they obtain technical functionality, budget officials looking to control costs and outcomes, or private funders that want to improve public services may find this report particularly useful.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

Project Redesign: Pandemic Unemployment and the Social Safety Net

The 33 stories in this collection are short, journalistic reports from interviews with living experts about the experiences of Americans trying to apply for unemployment and other benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

New America, National Conference on Citizenship
Report

New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance

This paper describes the policy choices, business practices, and technology innovations that the State of New Jersey is employing to ensure that the right people get benefits — accurately and on time.

Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, Rutgers University
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

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

Expanding Access to Tax Benefits, for Free

United Way Worldwide and New America’s New Practice Lab are currently partnering for a three month design sprint to identify how to make quality, free tax assistance more accessible to low income filers. This report explores how “Facilitated Self-Assistance,” where eligible filers file their own taxes online with assistance provided by IRS volunteers, can help increase accessibility to tax assistance and allow families to access benefits they are owed.

New America
Non-Academic Article

Digital Legal Systems Lab

A vision for place for collaborating on digital law and policy grounded experimentation, case studies ,and moving beyond the theoretical.

Digital Legal Systems Lab
Organization Website

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

Screened & Scored in the District of Columbia

This report explores how automated decision-making systems are being used in one jurisdiction: Washington, D.C.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Report

Sprint 3 Report | Michigan Unemployment | Improving communication and messaging for unemployment insurance in Michigan

This project documents the work of Civilla and New America to improve the delivery of unemployment benefits for claimants 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

Digital Identities and Verifiable Credentials

This article discusses the challenges of today’s centralized identity management and investigates current developments regarding verifiable credentials and digital wallets.

Business & Information Systems Engineering
Academic Article

Cracking the code: Rulemaking for humans and machines

Rules as Code proposes that governments create an official version of laws and regulations in a machine-consumable form, allowing the rules to be understood and actioned by computer systems in a consistent way.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Academic Article

How to Use the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS)

USWDS provides principles, guidance, and code to help you design and build accessible, mobile-friendly government websites and digital services.

Digital.gov
Government Documents

Digital Identity Guidelines: Enrollment and Identity Proofing

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 enrollment and verification of an identity for use in digital authentication.

National Institute of Standards and Technology
Report

Medicaid And SNAP Advance Equity But Sometimes Have Hidden Racial And Ethnic Barriers

This article explores how although SNAP and Medicaid programs have succeeded in narrowing health and nutrition disparities, certain policies hinder goals of racial and ethnic equity, even though they do not explicitly mention race or ethnicity.

Health Affairs
Academic Article

Administrative Burden: Learning, Psychological, and Compliance Costs in Citizen-State Interactions

Administrative burden placed on individual citizens are often a function of deliberate political choice, as to enact significant policy changes without broad political deliberation. This is evident in the evolution of Medicaid policies in Wisconsin.

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
Academic Article

A Love Letter to the Parliamentary Counsel of the World

A communication piece illustrating the need for a small addition to how government publishes legislation. Examples given for EU and New Zealand law.

Digital Legal Systems Lab
Case Study

OECD AI Policy Observatory

The OECD AI Policy Observatory offers detailed information about AI policy and research globally.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
No items found.

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

State of State AI Laws

This resource tracks state laws on AI at various stages of development and passage.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Non-Academic Article

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

To reimagine unemployment insurance services, start small

Building modular, open-source, human-centered software is necessary to create equitable government services fit for the digital age. Nava emphasizes addressing large scale digital service challenges by building and releasing small, modular software components that are loosely-coupled by well-defined APIs. This enables agencies to quickly and conistently deliver services that help people immediately, whilst also building a flexible foundation for long-term technical evolution.

Nava Public Benefit Corporation
Non-Academic Article

Design in the Public Sector: Toward a Human Centered Model of Public Governance

This paper analyses 15 cases of design in the public sector to arrive at a theoretical characterization of design in the public sector that aligns with descriptions in non-public settings. It also considers public design practices might signal the emergence of human-centered models of public governance that counterbalance more bureaucratic and analytical traditions.

Public Management Review
Academic Article

Responsible Design for Digital Communities

Digital interfaces are the bridges to our communities. Technology can’t fix the systemic inequality revealed by COVID19, but it can help make connections with our communities better. This tool kit and website brings together emergent best practices, workflows, and tools that communities, educators, mutual aid groups, designers, artists and activists are using for community building, and how design needs to change to best suit people, right now.

Responsible Design for Digital Communities
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.

Assembling Accountability: Algorithmic Impact Assessment for the Public Interest

This project maps the challenges of constructing algorithmic impact assessments (AIAs) by analyzing impact assessments in other domains—from the environment to human rights to privacy and identifies ten needed components for a robust impact assessment.

Data & Society
Report

Practica: Learn to Design Institutions That Put People First

Online courses from Civilla regarding human-centered design for public institutions.

Civilla
Workshop

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

Healing Policy Papercuts: Aligning small conflicts in application requirements makes public benefits easier to access

Integrating eligibility and enrollment benefits is an increasingly important undertaking for state governments around the country. However, states already in the process of integrating benefits are encountering an issue: differing and contradictory submission requirements dictated by the federal agencies running these benefits programs. Aligning these fragmented requirements is necessary to build a truly human-centered process for state benefits programs.

Nava Public Benefit Corporation
Non-Academic Article

Democratizing AI: Principles for Meaningful Public Participation

In this policy brief and video, Michele Gilman summarizes evidence-based recommendations for better structuring public participation processes for AI, and underscores the urgency of enacting them.

Data & Society
No items found.

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

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

Improving Customer Service in Health and Human Services Through Technology

This paper outlines common challenges agencies face while administering benefits and gives examples of how technology can streamline the process. It also discusses the importance of user-centered design, and the necessity of utilizing technology as part of a holistic strategy to implement public benefits.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Report

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

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

The Unfinished Business of the ACA

“Interoperability” refers to systems’ ability to interact with each other to share data so that a customer is connected with as many benefits as possible in an efficient way. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was originally intended to be interoperable, but this has not occurred yet. Promoting interoperability in the ACA is imperative, as it would help alleviate food insecurity through automatic benefits enrollment.

Alluma
Non-Academic Article

3 Ways to Get Benefits to the Families that Need Them

In a time of crisis, behavioral science offers insights into how to reduce the paperwork and other administrative burdens that prevent people from taking advantage of crucial support services.

Governing
Non-Academic Article

Keynote Eric Mill - The Future of Strong Authentication, in the US Government and Beyond

In this keynote presentation, Eric Mill, Senior Advisor at the Office of Budget and Management, discusses the future of authentication in federal government, including zero trust security priorities. This video comes from the Better Identity Coalition’s 2022 policy forum, “Identity, Authentication, and the Road Ahead."

Better Identity Coalition
Video

Parking signs and possible futures for LLMs in government

Government agencies adopting generative AI tools seems inevitable at this point. But there is more than one possible future for how agencies use generative AI to simplify complex government information.

Ad Hoc
No items found.

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

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

Best Practices for SNAP Telephonic Signatures

Guide detailing best practices for states, counties, and municipalities to adopt telephonic signatures.

Food Research and Action Center
Policy Brief

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

Using open-source LLMs to optimize government data

Companies have been developing and using artificial intelligence (AI) for decades. But we've seen exponential growth since OpenAI released their version of a large language model (LLM), ChatGPT, in 2022. Open-source versions of these tools can help agencies optimize their processes and surpass current levels of data analysis, all in a secure environment that won’t risk exposing sensitive information.

Ad Hoc
No items found.

Helping Policy Makers Put People First: A Step-by-Step Tool for User-Centered Policy Making

Policymakers, lawmakers, and government leaders are increasingly exploring new ways to ensure that laws and policies are centered around people’s needs while improving how services are delivered to the public. To help policymakers interested in following these successful models, the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation launched the User-Centered Policy Organization Assessment. Teams crafting policy inside and outside government can use the assessment to center their policy-making activities around those most impacted by their proposed programs and policy ideas.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Toolkit

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

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

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

Fast Track: A quicker road to Medicaid enrollment

Fast Track is an efficient, inexpensive enrollment option to enroll eligible individuals in Medicaid using data the state already has on hand from other applications. Through Fast Track, states can use TANF, SNAP, and LIHEAP data to determine eligibility and quickly enroll large numbers of individuals.

Benefits Data Trust
Policy Brief

Better Identity at Five Years: An Updated Policy Blueprint and Report Card

In 2018 the Better Identity Coalition released a Policy Blueprint outlining five key initiatives that to solve the majority of America’s challenges in the digital identity space. This report from 2024 grades progress on each of the original Blueprint’s five key initiatives – as well as the 19 items that were contained in the “action plan” to support those initiatives.

Better Identity Coalition
Report

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

Algorithmic Impact Assessments and Accountability: The Co-construction of Impacts

Algorithmic impact assessments (AIAs) are an emergent form of accountability for organizations that build and deploy automated decision-support systems. This academic paper explores how to co-construct impacts that closely reflects harms, and emphasizes the need for input of various types of expertise and affected communities.

FAccT '21: Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
Academic Article

Applying Rules as Code to the Social Safety Net

This short report outlines the promise and potential of digitizing benefits eligibility policy.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

Logging In and Providing Proof: A Guide to U.S. Government Actions on Digital Identity

This guide provides a detailed overview summarizing the many initiatives and activities from Congress, the White House, federal agencies, and coalitions which may impact the digital identity landscape in the United States, including at state, local, Tribal, and territorial levels.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Report

Improving mobile usability for claimants

Mobile usability refers to the ease with which people can accomplish tasks on smartphones or tablets. A good mobile experience enables people to do the same things they do on a desktop computer while considering mobile devices’ constraints.

U.S. Department of Labor
Government Documents

What’s in a name? A survey of strong regulatory definitions of automated decision-making systems

This post outlines different definitions of automated decision-making systems proposed by scholars and government entities.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Non-Academic Article

What the Digital Benefits Network is Reading on Automation

In this piece, the Digital Benefits Network shares several sources—from journalistic pieces, to reports and academic articles—we’ve found useful and interesting in our reading on automation and artificial intelligence.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
No items found.

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

The Government Is Helping People Pay Rent, But Something’s Gone Wrong

Rent relief distribution in 2020 was slow and inequitable, because local programs instituted strict eligibility criteria beyond what was required by the CARES Act. As a result of these hurdles, incomplete applications were a major barrier to distributing funds. This report describes the rent relief challenges during the pandemic, as well as a few possible fixes to help the next round of aid distribution.

New America
Non-Academic Article

Administrative Burden: Policymaking By Other Means

This book is an in-depth exploration of federal programs and controversial legislation demonstrating that administrative burden has long existed in policy design, preventing citizens from accessing fundamental rights. Further discussion of how policymakers can minimize administrative burden to reduce inequality, boost civic engagement, and build an efficient state.

Russell Sage Foundation
Book

On the Myths of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

Though the rhetoric of “waste, fraud, and abuse” is ubiquitous when it comes to welfare programs, low-income households receive little relief from benefits programs. Most efforts to make public benefits systems more “efficient” actually just waste time and money in practice. They instead serve to stigmatize low-income families and chip away at the little assistance that remains available to them.

New America
Non-Academic Article

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

Filing Taxes for Economic Justice

At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, CodeforAmerica rapidly scaled up GetYourRefund, allowing filers to quickly and simply file their taxes in order to get refunds they were eligible for.

Code for America
Non-Academic Article

Digital Identity in Public Benefits Applications: Balancing Equitable Access and Risk Reduction

This short resource provides an introduction to authentication and identity proofing in public benefits applications.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
Report

The Missed Opportunity in Online Benefits Applications: Mobile First

The ubiquity of mobile devices makes it imperative to build “mobile first” services, i.e. services built with the expectation that they will primarily be accessed on mobile devices. This article also outlines important considerations and suggestions for implementing mobile-first user interfaces.

Code for America
News

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

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

Digital Authentication and Identity Proofing in Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) 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 child care applications.

Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University
Dataset

Launching New Digital Tools for WIC Participants

Toolkit to help agencies administering WIC become more informed purchasers of digital tools for WIC participants.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Toolkit

New Jersey's Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Supports Impact Report

The New Jersey Department of Human Services and New Jersey Department of Health collaborated in their Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Supports project to enhance the enrollment and coordination of SNAP and WIC programs. By developing the NJ Nutritional Data Hub and an innovative webservice, the project identified and reached out to families receiving SNAP but not WIC, and vice versa, significantly streamlining the adjunctive eligibility process. This report documents best practices and lessons learned from their project.

American Public Human Services Association
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

Helping States and Families Prepare for the End of the Pandemic Emergency Declaration

When the COVID-19 public heath emergency declaration ends, so will the expansion of many key safety net programs, causing millions to lose critical assistance nationwide. This article describes some of the steps the Benefits Data Trust is taking to help states transition and allow families to rectify and access benefits they are eligible for.

Benefits Data Trust
News

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

Five Things You May Not Know about the US Social Safety Net

A snapshot of the safety net’s reach, who might be most affected by changes to safety net programs, and what it will look like going forward.

Urban Institute
Report

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

California Employment Development Department Identity Proofing Demo Day Presentation

This 2023 presentation from the California Employment Development Department details the user personas the agency used to evaluate vendor proposals for a new identity proofing contract.

California Employment Development Department (EDD)
Presentation

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

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

Surveillance, Discretion and Governance in Automated Welfare

This academic article develops a framework for evaluating whether and how automated decision-making welfare systems introduce new harms and burdens for claimants, focusing on an example case from Germany.

Science and Technology Studies
Academic Article

Leveraging Technology For Human-Centered One-Stop Workforce Service Delivery

A case study of the Hawai‘i Career Acceleration Navigator — an accessible, data-driven and full-service government platform for unemployed people and other jobseekers to search for jobs and access supportive service benefits.

National Governors Association
Case Study

Safety Net Services Built for Outcomes

Code for America helped expand GetCalFresh (a service that guides Californians through the SNAP application process and helps government deliver food assistance to people in need) from a small pilot into a statewide service. They also recently concluded a similar pilot in Michigan along with Civilla and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Code for America
News

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

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

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

Improving Digital Identity – Where Government Can Help

In this panel conversation from Better Identity Coalition’s 2022 policy forum “Identity, Authentication, and the Road Ahead” presenters from the General Services Administration, the Transportation Security Administration, the Consumer First Coalition, and the congressional branch, discuss government’s role in digital identity. The discussion covers a range of topics, including mobile driver’s licenses, the Social Security Administration’s electronic Consent Based Social Security Number Verification service (eCBSV), and digital identity innovation.

Better Identity Coalition
Video

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

Centering Workers—How to Modernize Unemployment Insurance Technology

This report, jointly authored by The Century Foundation, the National Employment Law Project, and Philadelphia Legal Assistance, presents the findings of an intensive study of state efforts to modernize their unemployment insurance (UI) benefit systems. This is the first report to detail how UI modernization has altered the customer experience. It offers lessons drawn from state modernization efforts and recommends user-friendly design and implementation methods to help states succeed in future projects.

The Century Foundation
Report

Transforming Administrative Data into a Resource for Evidence Building

This brief describes TDI’s efforts to transform federal TANF and employment data into an integrated resource for program management and evidence building. This challenging project required the resolution of multiple technical, legal, and data security issues. Lessons learned may be useful for audiences interested in unlocking the potential of administrative data, including members of federal and state agencies, researchers, and advocates of evidence-informed policymaking.

MDRC, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, Coleridge Initiative, Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania
Policy Brief

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

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

18F Methods: Usability Testing

18F describes how to implement usability tests to understand how intuitive a given design is, as well as how adaptable it is to meeting user needs.

18F
Toolkit
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