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.
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.
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.
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.
Though the rhetoric of “waste, fraud, and abuse” is ubiquitous when it comes to welfare programs, low-income households receive little relief from benefits programs. Most efforts to make public benefits systems more “efficient” actually just waste time and money in practice. They instead serve to stigmatize low-income families and chip away at the little assistance that remains available to them.
This playbook offers a comprehensive guide to enhancing unemployment benefits systems, focusing on claimant-centric approaches, equitable access, and actionable steps for state agencies.
Part of the $1.9 trillion recovery package that Biden signed into law includes a $1 billion grant to the Technology Modernization Fund. The fund’s purpose is to help federal agencies upgrade their cybersecurity and modernize their technology. The TMF is a chance for federal agencies to move toward a responsive model of government, where people quickly and easily access the resources they need.
This article examines how applying a Racial Equity Framework reveals systemic inequities in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program, offering insights into barriers faced by marginalized communities and potential solutions.
The Lost in the Labyrinth brief examines how fragmented early care and education (ECE) programs across the U.S. create challenges for families seeking services for young children.
Drawing on interviews and convenings with experts and practitioners from the field of public interest technology, this report contains recommendations across five core priority action areas for cross-sector innovation and collaboration to improve state benefits systems through procurement practices.
