Benefits Program: WIC: Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children
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Human-Centered Design The Federal government is redesigning how it delivers services
Article announcing five new projects by the Office of Management and Budget that will improve experiences the public has with the government during significant movements in their lives. These “life experience” projects are at the center of a new model for how the Federal Government should better design and deliver benefits, services, and programs to the American people during the moments in their lives that matter most.
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How APIs can help WIC better meet staff and participants’ needs
WIC programs across the country are already adapting and evolving to meet their participants’ needs. An API standard, which allows agencies to plug digital tools into existing technology systems, would remove some of the key barriers to innovating and sharing technology tools between agencies.
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Human-Centered Design In Their Own Words: Parents Help Us Understand Barriers to Accessing WIC
Code for America explores the systems at play and the individuals experience of participants in WIC. By investigating overall quantitative trends in coverage, redemption, and retention rates, they use the data as a guide to build out a qualitative research plan that explains why such trends are occurring.
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Human-Centered Design How Human-Centered Is our Social Safety Net?
This article discusses Code for America’s research into the user experience of applying or Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, WIC, and LIHEAP in the United States. They found that user experience applying for benefits programs varies greatly by (and often within) each state.
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Streamlining SNAP for the Gig Economy
This issue brief explores how states can leverage existing policy to better support self-employed workers. The Simplified Self-Employment Deduction option available to state SNAP programs is a key example of one such supportive policy. This brief discusses the advantages of this policy option, and highlights the experiences of officials in Alabama, Maryland, Nebraska, and South Carolina, in addition to offering a roadmap for other states.
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How Well Insured are Job Losers? Efficacy of the Public Safety Net
An extensive literature in economics documents large and persistent declines in earnings following involuntary job loss. Though Unemployment Insurance provides the largest buffer against lost income, due to the structure of the program, the neediest are less-well insured (in terms of dollars transferred and percentage of lost earnings replaced) compared to middle and higher income job losers. This has important implications in light of the historic number of job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code NYC Benefits Platform: Eligibility Screening API
The NYC Benefits Screening API provides machine-readable calculations and criteria for benefits screening that power the ACCESS NYC screening questionnaire.
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ACCESS NYC Github
Github page with ACCESS NYC’s code for benefits outreach and eligibility.
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Communications Accessible Benefits Information: Reducing Administrative Burden and Improving Equitable Access through Clear Communication About Safety Net Benefits
Complex benefits information creates unnecessary barriers for people trying to understand what’s relevant to them so that they can take immediate action to receive the benefits they need. As part of the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation’s series on documenting best practices in social safety net benefits access and delivery, this guide to Accessible Benefits Information offers case studies that show how groups in Michigan, New York City, and San José use plain language, multilingual translation, co-creation and testing with residents, and technology tools to provide better information about benefits.
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ACCESS NYC
ACCESS NYC is an online public screening tool that residents can use to determine the City, State, and Federal health and human service benefit programs for which they are eligible.
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Youth Growing Up NYC
Growing Up NYC 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.
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code Benefit Eligibility Rules as Code: Reducing the Gap Between Policy and Service Delivery for the Safety Net
The complexity of eligibility rules creates a burden for state and local government agencies, delivery organizations, and policymakers who interpret and implement policy to deliver benefits in their jurisdictions. This report explores how the U.S. federal government could improve the efficiency and equity of benefits delivery to Americans in need by applying new approaches to eligibility requirements for core safety net programs, and using a “rules as code” approach to improve digitization of legislation and policy documents.