The Sprint 2 Report: Michigan UI Claimant Experience by Civilla and New America examines challenges in Michigan’s unemployment insurance (UI) system and provides human-centered design recommendations to improve accessibility, clarity, and user experience.
The article explores the importance of participatory planning in policymaking, emphasizing how engaging impacted communities improves program design, equity, and trust in government, with a focus on early childhood education initiatives.
This report details the development and deployment of My File, an open-source digital document management tool designed to help individuals securely store and share documents needed to access public services.
Clearing applicant backlogs is an important solution to the UI crisis. State governments and federal agencies could facilitate access to public benefits by collaborating to develop interoperable technology platforms that use open source software and modular design. Panelists discuss opportunities to prevent future UI crises by reimagining how governments deliver benefits to their citizens.
This playbook offers a comprehensive guide to enhancing unemployment benefits systems, focusing on claimant-centric approaches, equitable access, and actionable steps for state agencies.
A guide by New America to help cities and states set up cash assistance programs for their residents, based on the Alia Cares platform that the National Domestic Workers Alliance built to run their Coronavirus Cares Fund that provides emergency assistance for home care workers to support them in staying safe and at home to slow the spread of COVID.
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.
The IRS is arguably the single most critical benefits administrator in the country, given its responsibility for tax credit-based relief programs, and COVID-19 relief payments. Despite these programs’ incredible progress in reducing poverty, and despite great strides by the IRS to implement them successfully, accessing IRS benefits remains too difficult for many low-income families. This report presents a comprehensive agenda to increase benefit coverage rates, simplify Americans’ interactions with the IRS, and decrease the portion of IRS benefits diverted to third parties.
