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.
This report highlights 5 key takeaways from the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program's 2022 Benefits Forum, where 55 experts from various sectors discussed solutions for improving public and private benefits to better support workers and their families.
The Medicaid Renewals Playbook offers strategies for technologists assisting states in streamlining Medicaid renewal processes during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency unwinding.
Code for America partnered with the CBPP, Civilla, and Nava to launch the Integrated Benefits Initiative, testing and piloting human-centered approaches to improve outcomes and learn what an optimal safety net could look like. This article describes key takeaways from short-term pilots implemented as part of this project.
This guide discusses general characteristics shared by organizations that have successfully created accessible content, and includes case studies that showcase characteristics of successful accessible content teams.
The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and its induced recession underscored the crucial importance of unemployment insurance (UI) to workers, and to the stability of the American economy. Temporary federal expansions of unemployment systems during the pandemic showed how they can quickly be scaled to increase benefit levels and to include categories of workers who were not previously eligible, such as the self-employed, caregivers, and low-wage workers. And, states showed that separate programs can be set up to provide similar benefits to workers who are explicitly excluded from unemployment insurance—in particular immigrants who do not have a documented immigration status.
A New America report examines the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, highlighting its role in aiding low-income tax filers and offering recommendations to enhance public benefit access through improved tax filing assistance.
Initially created to inform federal staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this tip sheet provides key considerations for how organizations can identify potential diverse external partners, conduct outreach to them, and build and sustain productive relationships with them.
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
This blog post discusses strategies that states can implement to make public assistance applications more accessible during the COVID-19 crisis, emphasizing the importance of flexibility in application processes to accommodate increased demand and social distancing measures.
The FileYourStateTaxes pilot successfully integrated state tax filing with the IRS Direct File program, improving taxpayer experience and ease of filing.
Digitizing public benefits policy will make the biggest impact for administrators and Americans, but only if it happens at the highest level of government.
