Benefits Journey: Applying + Enrolling
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Voices of Washington’s Unemployed: Highlights and Analysis From 100 Interviews with Recent Unemployment Benefits Claimants in Washington State
Through the interviews, ULP sought to capture details of claimant experience, see how and why system failures occurred, and make recommendations for reform now—before another financial or public health crisis suddenly causes state unemployment rates to spike.
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Helping Families Access Public Benefits with AI and Automation
Webinar that shares Nava’s partnership with the Gates Foundation and the Benefits Data Trust that seeks to answer if generative and predictive AI can be used ethically to help reduce administrative burdens for benefits navigators.
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Decoded: Digital Identity in Public Benefits (Webinar)
In this webinar, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Digital Benefits Network explored key terms related to digital identity, and provided ecosystem-level context on how authentication and identity proofing may show up in the online benefits experience and impact clients. Presenters also shared a list of resources, including guidance from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), introductory materials, and other research to support participants in continued learning.
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Decoded: Digital Identity in Public Benefits
In 2024, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Digital Benefits Network led a workshop to explore key terms related to digital identity, and provide ecosystem-level context on how authentication and identity proofing may show up in the online benefits experience and impact clients. This resource links to the presentation slides.
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Plain Language: Foundations 101 Webcast
This is a video recording of a NASWA Feb 2024 webinar on plain language presented for UI state leaders. Slides are also available.
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AI-Powered SNAP Modernization: An Introduction to Current and Potential Uses of AI in SNAP Case Processing
This report explores how AI is currently used, and how it might be used in the future, to support administrative actions that agency staff complete when processing customers’ SNAP cases. In addition to desk and primary research, this brief was informed by input from APHSA’s wide network of state, county, and city members and national partners in the human services and related sectors.
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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.
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Shared Values/Conflicting Logics: Working Around E-Government Systems
This paper describes results from fieldwork conducted at a social services site where the workers evaluate citizens' applications for food and medical assistance submitted via an e-government system. These results suggest value tensions that result - not from different stakeholders with different values - but from differences among how stakeholders enact the same shared value in practice.
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Opportunities to Improve Online Access to SNAP for Older Adults
This issue brief illustrates the challenges that many older adults with low income face in gaining access to benefits online. It addresses digital literacy, access to broadband internet, and the increasing prevalence of connecting online to SNAP.
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Increasing Older Adult Access to SNAP
This brief highlights the complex journey that older adults experience when applying for and enrolling in SNAP, including the major barriers and solutions that improve access along the way.
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The Ohio Benefits Program is “BOT” In
This award documentation from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) explains how agencies in Ohio used automation to support administration of public benefits programs.
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Fewer Burdens but Greater Inequality? Reevaluating the Safety Net through the Lens of Administrative Burden
This article examines how administrative burdens in U.S. social safety net programs have changed over the past 30 years, showing that while average burdens have declined, inequality in who faces these burdens has grown.