This post argues that for the types of large-scale, organized fraud attacks that many state benefits systems saw during the pandemic, solutions grounded in cybersecurity methods may be far more effective than creating or adopting automated systems.
This section of the Department of Labor’s Building Resilience plan focuses on improving customer experience across unemployment insurance (UI) systems by promoting timely, accessible, and equitable service delivery for all claimants.
This report discusses the financial resilience strategies families used to manage gaps before benefits arrived, in addition to providing recommendations for how benefits can be better designed in the future to fit the financial lives of lower-income households.
The exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers—predominantly African Americans—from the 1935 Social Security Act's unemployment insurance program is analyzed as a result of international policy diffusion rather than solely domestic racial politics.
Michigan's UIA director, Julia Dale, is leading the agency through transition by prioritizing lived experience, hope, grit, and values. Virginia's SNAP Program Manager, Michele Thomas, highlighted the success of Sun Bucks, a summer EBT child nutrition program that fed over 700,000 kids in its first year.
The NYC Benefits Screening API provides machine-readable calculations and criteria for benefits screening that power the ACCESS NYC screening questionnaire.
Led by the Digital Benefits Network in partnership with Public Policy Lab, the Digital Doorways research project amplifies the lived experiences of beneficiaries to provide new insights into people’s experiences with digital identity processes and technology in public benefits. This report details the project’s findings, directly highlighting the voices of beneficiaries through videos and photos.
NYC's My File NYC and New Jersey's unemployment insurance system improvements demonstrate how successful digital innovations can be scaled across various programs, leveraging trust-building, open-source technology, and strategic partnerships.
This toolkit is designed to assist state and local TANF agencies in accessing, linking, and analyzing employment data from unemployment insurance (UI) systems.
This report outlines how modernizing unemployment insurance (UI) technology with a worker-centered approach can improve access, efficiency, and equity in the UI system.
Clearing applicant backlogs is an important solution to the UI crisis. State governments and federal agencies could facilitate access to public benefits by collaborating to develop interoperable technology platforms that use open source software and modular design. Panelists discuss opportunities to prevent future UI crises by reimagining how governments deliver benefits to their citizens.
