Author: Heather Hahn
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Diversity, Equity + Inclusion 
Strategies to Support Young People’s Access to Public Benefits
The report identifies strategies to improve young people's access to public benefits, including targeted outreach, benefit navigation, partnerships, eligibility expansion, and administrative efficiency.
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Policy 
Using TANF Funds to Provide Cash to Families
The flexibility of the TANF block grant allows states to use TANF funds to provide cash to families through additional mechanisms, at least for brief periods, with fewer requirements.
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Strategies for Improving Public Benefits Access and Retention
This report presents a menu of strategies that have the potential to increase access to individual public benefit programs or a package of benefits. It focuses on Illinois, but the strategies identified are relevant throughout the country.
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Improvements in Public Programs’ Customer Service Experiences Could Better Meet Enrollees’ Needs and Help Build Trust in Government
To better understand the experiences of people applying for public benefit programs and their perceptions of good and bad customer service within those programs, in 2022, the Urban Institute interviewed 27 adults who had applied for or received TANF cash assistance or Medicaid/CHIP in 2021 and reported at least one of four specified enrollment challenges.
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Policy 
What Are Human Services, and How Do State Governments Structure Them?
This report describes the human services landscape within state governments and uses case studies to show the range of approaches state governments take in structuring their human services systems. It also explores some implications of these structures for alignment and coordination within human services and with the health care sector.
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Policy 
Changes in State TANF Policies in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
As the US economy shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state administrators for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—the nation’s primary program for helping families with low incomes meet basic needs while supporting their transition to economic mobility through work opportunities—faced new challenges operating the program and meeting their clients’ needs. For families previously or newly receiving TANF, the pandemic made it harder to meet the work and activity requirements necessary to continue receiving benefits. Many state TANF administrators and agencies responded to the pandemic and stay-at-home orders by adjusting their policies to meet their states’ and families’ unique situations, needs, and challenges. In this brief, we describe how some of these agencies adapted their policies during the early months of the pandemic.
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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.
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Poverty Results from Structural Barriers, Not Personal Choices. Safety Net Programs Should Reflect That Fact
The structure of many social safety net programs ignore systemic barriers rooted in structural racism that disproportionately affect people of color. Instead, these programs are meager and punitive, designed to blame individual shortcomings. The current economic crisis and its disproportionate impacts highlight the need to redesign safety net programs to rectify these inequities and ensure everyone can access the resources they need to provide for their families.
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Access for All: Innovation for Equitable SNAP Delivery
This brief describes the current state of SNAP benefit delivery through the electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card, identifies the features necessary for SNAP benefit delivery to ensure consistency with principles of equity and inclusion, and explores how future SNAP benefit delivery can keep up with rapid changes in commercial payment infrastructure.