Expanding access to free tax assistance through virtual Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) programs can help low-income filers claim essential tax benefits without incurring preparation fees.
This Issue Spotlight explores the challenges that recipients of public benefits programs offering cash assistance encounter in accessing funds through financial products or services, with a specific focus on assistance provided on prepaid cards.
This playbook offers a comprehensive guide to enhancing unemployment benefits systems, focusing on claimant-centric approaches, equitable access, and actionable steps for state agencies.
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.
This paper discusses the country’s chronic underinvestment in children and resulting outcomes, including new data on poverty rates among young children, is inextricable from the prospects of young children; and the remarkably comprehensive pandemic-era response policies, including which changes contributed most to reducing child poverty.
This report describes C-Stat 2.0, an updated version of the the Colorado Department of Human Services’ performance-based analysis strategy that allows them to better focus on and improve performance outcomes that enhance people’s lives.
The National Health Law Program released an updated Guide to Modified Adjusted Gross Income, including sections on ACA tax filing and reporting, clarification on commonly asked questions about Social Security Income, and updated IRS tax filing thresholds.
This article examines how the decentralization of safety net programs after welfare reform has led to growing inequality in benefit generosity and access across U.S. states.
This report outlines the U.S. Department of Labor’s comprehensive action plan to strengthen the unemployment insurance (UI) system by addressing chronic underfunding and proposing legislative reforms to support long-term modernization and resilience.
