Intended Audience: Federal/National Government: Legislative Branch
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User Research 
Digital.gov User Testing and Research News and Events Feed
A collection of updates, news, and events on user testing and research from Digital.gov.
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User Research 
Digital.gov Research Resources
Resources from Digital.gov on research
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code 
Blawx
Blawx is a prototype platform for user-friendly rules as code online. It includes an example encoding of portions of Canada's Old Age Security Act.
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Bloom Housing: Affordable housing portal
A modern system that helps people learn about, apply for, and gain access to affordable housing. Bloom Housing is an open source platform that digitizes the process of finding and applying for affordable housing, turning a time-consuming paper process into a 15 minute activity from one's smartphone or computer.
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code 
Policy Rules Database Github
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.
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Digitizing Policy + Rules as Code 
PolicyEngine US GitHub repository
PolicyEngine US is a Python-based microsimulation model of the US tax and benefit system. It models federal individual income taxes (including credits), major benefit programs, and state income taxes (currently in six states). The PolicyEngine US package can be used as a Python package, via the PolicyEngine API, or via the policyengine.org web app.
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Diversity, Equity + Inclusion 
Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government
Entrenched disparities in our laws and public policies, and in our public and private institutions, have often denied that equal opportunity to individuals and communities. It is therefore the policy of the Biden Administration that the Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality.
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Human-Centered Design 
6-Month Update: Delivering on the President’s Commitment to Transform Customer Experience
President Biden believes that every American—regardless of where you live, where you work, or who you are—should have simple, seamless, and secure access to the Federal services they need. Over the past six months, we’ve gotten off to a fast start translating the President’s historic Executive Order on customer experience into action. Today, at the half-year mark, we have more key updates to share.
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Policy 
Aligning Systems to Advance Family and Community Well-Being: A Partnership Playbook for Community Action and Human Services Agencies
This playbook outlines the ways Community Action and human services agencies worked together to meet the pandemic challenge—what worked well, obstacles and difficulties, and lessons learned to inform the path forward, partnering to achieve a more equitable recovery. It also explains how communities have leveraged opportunities to partner on approaches that hold the promise of deeper, longer lasting changes for families—work shaped by families’ wishes and strengths and designed to advance both family-level and systems-level change.
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Policy 
2022 Benefits Scorecard
Framework by the Aspen Institute to assess how both public and private benefits are performing to support workers’ financial security needs, identify where innovations are needed to fill current benefit gaps, and explore opportunities to improve and modernize design and delivery. This resource allows policymakers, employers, benefits providers, and researchers assess benefits performance for constituents and identify opportunities in market and policy innovation to ensure equitable benefits distribution.
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Diversity, Equity + Inclusion 
A Bold Policy Agenda for Work-Family Justice and Gender Equity During COVID-19 and Beyond
New America spoke to to the people at the frontlines of the pandemic—professional caregivers, family caregivers, parents, and essential workers—to understand the policy interventions people need most. This report discusses ideas for policymakers, private sector leaders, and community innovators to use in pursuit of work-family justice and equity across race, gender, and class.
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Policy 
A Public Transformed? Welfare Reform as Policy Feedback
This article analyzes the strategic use of public policy as a tool for reshaping public opinion. Though progressive revisionists in the 1990s argued that reforming welfare could produce a public more willing to invest in anti-poverty efforts, welfare reform in the 1990s did little to shift public opinion. This study investigates the general conditions under which mass feedback effects should be viewed as more or less likely.