This policy brief outlines how improved data sharing between federal agencies, state and local governments, and institutions can leverage existing data from other benefits programs to streamline eligibility processes and benefits uptake for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and other programs.
This report outlines how state WIC agencies can adjust their policies to remove enrollment barriers. The report also provides detailed research on the status of WIC eligibility practices and documentation requirements across states.
This visualized report is a first first-of-its-kind view of the state of benefits applications across the nation from a client perspective, including information on application availability online, combined benefit applications, application completion times, as well as login and identity proofing requirements.
Passing a major new social program like paid family and medical leave (PFML) is only the first step in creating change. To achieve real impact, PFML programs must be well implemented — and as more and more states pass PFML programs, the urgency of such good implementation has never been higher. In 2019, New America staffed a discovery sprint team to explore New Jersey’s pioneering PFML program, using a mixture of beneficiary interviews, data analysis, and business processing mapping. Based on that research, this report outlines key implementation learnings for administrators in other states, focusing on: (a) communicating about PFML, (b) outreach strategies, (c) applications and processing, and (d) IT infrastructure.
This report, jointly authored by The Century Foundation, the National Employment Law Project, and Philadelphia Legal Assistance, presents the findings of an intensive study of state efforts to modernize their unemployment insurance (UI) benefit systems. This is the first report to detail how UI modernization has altered the customer experience. It offers lessons drawn from state modernization efforts and recommends user-friendly design and implementation methods to help states succeed in future projects.
The U.S. Department of Labor is working with states, territories, and the public to develop strategies to continuously improve the nation’s unemployment insurance (UI) systems. All of the work shown on this site to date came from the Claimant Experience Pilot engagement between U.S. Department of Labor, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the Arkansas Division of Workforce Services funded through ARPA.
As family’s earnings rise, those earnings increases are often offset by declines in public assistance benefits (commonly called “benefit cliffs” when the declines are sharp) and increases in taxes owed. At the same time, refundable tax credits—which offset taxes owed and are delivered as a tax refund—can boost income. These interactions can be confusing and make it difficult for parents to anticipate how increasing their work hours, hourly wage rate, or both will affect their benefits, taxes, and income to support their families. This study estimates what happens to benefits and taxes when earnings increase and also explores how people perceive public benefit interactions, trade-offs, and benefit cliffs as they increase their work hours or earn higher wages.
State and county agencies have made remarkable progress digitizing their forms and processes. But to take full advantage of online systems, agencies must also ensure that people can easily set up and sign into online accounts. This would not only benefit clients, but also significantly reduce the workload for caseworkers and administrators, allowing them to focus on clients that need more intensive in-person assistance.
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.
Integrating eligibility and enrollment benefits is an increasingly important undertaking for state governments around the country. However, states already in the process of integrating benefits are encountering an issue: differing and contradictory submission requirements dictated by the federal agencies running these benefits programs. Aligning these fragmented requirements is necessary to build a truly human-centered process for state benefits programs.
GetYourRefund.org is an online portal by Code for America that helps low-income individuals claim thousands of dollars in tax credits, even after the traditional tax deadline has passed.
A playbook by New America describing lessons learned from past recessions, recent pandemic-inspired innovations, and complementary benefit spaces like SNAP and WIC.
