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.
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
This report calculates the cumulative impact of major benefit programs on two types of families and how their benefits change as they move into the labor market and climb the ladder of upward mobility.
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.
This report examines how the U.S. federal government can enhance the efficiency and equity of benefit delivery by simplifying eligibility rules and using a Rules as Code approach for digital systems.
This article explores how integrating behavioral science into public administration can improve government effectiveness, equity, and trust by redesigning public services with human behavior in mind.
The Atlanta Fed’s CLIFF tools provide greater transparency to workers about potential public assistance losses when their earnings increase. We find three broad themes in organization-level implementation of the CLIFF tools: identifying the tar- get population of users; integrating the tool into existing operations; and integrating the tool into coaching sessions.
This resource provides guidance on streamlining enrollment across public benefit programs to improve efficiency, reduce administrative burdens, and enhance access for eligible individuals and families.
The IRS is arguably the single most critical benefits administrator in the country, given its responsibility for tax credit-based relief programs, and COVID-19 relief payments. Despite these programs’ incredible progress in reducing poverty, and despite great strides by the IRS to implement them successfully, accessing IRS benefits remains too difficult for many low-income families. This report presents a comprehensive agenda to increase benefit coverage rates, simplify Americans’ interactions with the IRS, and decrease the portion of IRS benefits diverted to third parties.
Github repository for Policy Rules Database, which encodes up-to-date rules and provisions for all major federal and state public assistance programs, taxes, and tax credits.
This Urban Institute report examines how public investments in children's health, education, and welfare yield significant short- and long-term benefits for both individuals and society.
Growing Up NYCÂ is mobile-friendly website that makes it simple for families to learn about and access city programs, as well as services and activities available to New York residents.
