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.
This article discusses how Code for America enhanced the CalFresh application process to better assist self-employed individuals in accessing their full benefits by clarifying self-employment definitions and simplifying income verification.
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.
WIC enrollment has declined over the last decade, preventing millions of eligible low-income individuals from accessing its benefits. This report examines state WIC outreach pilots and discusses the effectiveness of text message outreach and key considerations when developing and launching targeted text outreach campaigns.
This data playbook created by the California Health and Human services agencies discusses five plays designed to help Departments utilize data to inform program and policy development.
California Health and Human Services Agency (Cal HHS)
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)
The Performance.gov team hosted a webinar featuring federal customer experience (CX) changemakers from across government and focused on the nine CX projects that aim to address pain points learned about through human-centered design research.
Code for America describes its work building the P-EBT online application and the consulting it provided to 10 states regarding implementing the program in a quick, effective, and human-centered way. Despite herculean efforts among human services and education agencies to get P-EBT off the ground, there were a few key technological, operational, and logistical barriers that consistently got in the way and hampered a smooth rollout of the program across the country.
The Texting Playbook provides guidance and well-researched strategies to help state agencies implement texting in support of Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, and other benefits programs. It provides an overview of how to start texting clients; the types of messages to send, including real examples; Federal Communications Commision (FCC) policy guidance; how to encourage opt-ins and collect consent; how to avoid coming across as spam; and a cost analysis of texting.
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.
Approximately 12 million low-income individuals risk missing out on federal stimulus payments due to non-filing status, prompting the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) to recommend targeted state outreach to connect eligible non-filers with their Economic Impact Payments (EIPs).
