This blog explores the rise of person-centered insights in policymaking, featuring an overview of its benefits and expert interviews highlighting its crucial role in effectively delivering public benefits and human services.
This page describes the agency’s investments in digital tools and services aimed at reducing friction in how people find, apply for, and maintain eligibility for federal benefits.
In a time of crisis, behavioral science offers insights into how to reduce the paperwork and other administrative burdens that prevent people from taking advantage of crucial support services.
In this brief, they present a definition of HCD that is applicable to the context of human services delivery, differentiate HCD from similar design and problem-solving approaches, and describe how HCD is being used in human services.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
The Better Government Lab at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University has developed a new scale for measuring the experience of burden when accessing public benefits. They offer both a three-item scale and a single-item scale, which can be utilized for any public benefit program. The shorter scales provide a less burdensome way to measure by requiring less information from users.
This foundational article develops the concept of administrative burden, defining it as the learning, psychological, and compliance costs individuals face when interacting with government, and argues that these burdens are often shaped by political choices.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
This book is an in-depth exploration of federal programs and controversial legislation demonstrating that administrative burden has long existed in policy design, preventing citizens from accessing fundamental rights. Further discussion of how policymakers can minimize administrative burden to reduce inequality, boost civic engagement, and build an efficient state.
Professor Don Moynihan discusses how administrative burden is an effective tool to make it difficult for people to access certain types of benefits, noting that this is particularly harmful to communities of color.
This study describes the potential of human-centered design principles to identify burdens, reducing the effects of what we label as administrative checkpoints.
