This guide highlights approachable ideas for state and local public benefits agencies to improve applications, renewals, and correspondence. As outlined in this resource, even small improvements can be transformative for residents and caseworkers alike.
By taking on one or more steps to integrate benefits incrementally, on a small, more localized scale, benefits administrators can make progress towards improving resident and staff experiences. This guide outlines ideas for launching an integrated benefits application in stages, and strategies to pilot new tools.
Complex benefits information creates unnecessary barriers for residents and navigators who must understand what’s relevant to them so they can receive benefits. For non-native English speakers, these barriers are exacerbated. This resource guide outlines approaches for translating content to improve equitable access to benefits.
While some approaches to benefits integration use technology to improve processes and user experience, other approaches rely less on technology or datasets and more on improving frontline staff’s knowledge and capacity. The examples in this guide describe how peer-to-peer training and updated interview scripts can help connect residents to the benefits they are eligible for.
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.
Drawing on the Beeck Center’s research on government, nonprofit, academic, and private sector organizations that are working to improve access to safety net benefits, this report highlights best practices for creating accessible benefits content.
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.
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.
This report outlines key lessons and recommendations from Code for America's collaboration with the Voluntary Income Tax Assistance program, which served over 800,000 clients via GetYourRefund.org.
Passing a major new social program like paid family and medical leave (PFML) is only the first step in creating change. To achieve real impact, PFML programs must be well implemented — and as more and more states pass PFML programs, the urgency of such good implementation has never been higher. In 2019, New America staffed a discovery sprint team to explore New Jersey’s pioneering PFML program, using a mixture of beneficiary interviews, data analysis, and business processing mapping. Based on that research, this report outlines key implementation learnings for administrators in other states, focusing on: (a) communicating about PFML, (b) outreach strategies, (c) applications and processing, and (d) IT infrastructure.
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.
