In response to COVID-19, the Workers Lab and Steady developed the "Income Passport" to streamline gig workers' unemployment benefit applications by pulling income data directly from gig platforms and financial accounts. This tool reduced manual verification time, helped prevent fraud, and improved workers' access to full benefits, with successful tests in Alabama and Louisiana demonstrating significant time savings and improved service delivery.
18F, a consultancy within the U.S. General Services Administration, developed a prototype API and pre-screener to model federal SNAP eligibility rules, aiming to simplify benefits access through open-source technology.
PolicyEngine is a nonprofit that provides a free, open-source web app enabling users in the US and UK to estimate taxes and benefits at the household level, while also simulating the effects of policy changes. By combining tax and benefits data, PolicyEngine helps individuals and policymakers better understand the impacts of existing policies and proposed reforms, using microsimulation models built from legislation and enhanced survey data.
The team introduced "Policy Pulse," a tool to help policy analysts understand laws and regulations better by comparing current policies with their original goals to identify implementation issues.
The team conducted experiments to determine whether clients would be responsive to proactive support offered by a chatbot, and identify the ideal timing of the intervention.
The team developed an AI-powered explanation feature that effectively translates complex, multi-program policy calculations into clear and accessible explanations, enabling users to explore "what-if" scenarios and understand key factors influencing benefit amounts and eligibility thresholds.
The team developed an application to simplify Medicaid and CHIP applications through LLM APIs while addressing limitations such as hallucinations and outdated information by implementing a selective input process for clean and current data.
This video documents the Digital Benefits Network's Digital Identity Community of Practice launch, covering mission review, 2025 goals, California authentication innovations, and peer networking for equitable and effective digital identity in public benefits.
The Digital Benefits Network's second Digital Identity Community of Practice quarterly call centered exploring client support models in digital identity and an update on the Balance ID project.
Practitioner Picks is a new quarterly series designed to add fresh resources to the Digital Government Hub’s library, helping people improve government digital service delivery. Each issue spotlights resources chosen by practitioners in a specific service delivery area along with their insights on why these picks are valuable additions to the Hub. In this edition, our contributors round up resources to help bring housing services into the digital age.
