This article emphasizes the need for local leaders to prioritize disability equity in advancing upward mobility, addressing systemic barriers that hinder disabled individuals' escape from poverty.
The federal government's investments in children are crucial in addressing poverty and have long-term benefits across multiple domains, such as health, education, and economic stability, illustrating how support in one area can lead to positive outcomes in others.
Despite Biden administration reversals to prior policies, Urban Institute data from 2023 shows that many immigrant families, especially those with children or mixed status, continue to avoid benefits amid ongoing economic challenges.
The report identifies strategies to improve young people's access to public benefits, including targeted outreach, benefit navigation, partnerships, eligibility expansion, and administrative efficiency.
The flexibility of the TANF block grant allows states to use TANF funds to provide cash to families through additional mechanisms, at least for brief periods, with fewer requirements.
Research examining how much poverty would decrease—overall, by age, and by race and ethnicity—and how much benefits would increase if all people eligible for safety net programs received the full benefits they qualify for in each of the 50 states and DC.
This report presents a menu of strategies that have the potential to increase access to individual public benefit programs or a package of benefits. It focuses on Illinois, but the strategies identified are relevant throughout the country.
This resource examines how improvements in customer service experiences in public benefit programs like Medicaid, CHIP, and TANF can help better meet enrollees’ needs and build trust in government.
This report describes the human services landscape within state governments and uses case studies to show the range of approaches state governments take in structuring their human services systems. It also explores some implications of these structures for alignment and coordination within human services and with the health care sector.
The Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program was launched as an effort to address the loss of access to free and reduced-price school meals due to widespread school closures at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools reopened in a shifting mix of fully virtual, hybrid, and inperson formats and families lacked consistent access to school meals, these benefits were extended through the 2020–21 school year and were highly valuable to families in buffering the full extent of food insecurity they may have faced during this uncertain time. However, the complexity of administering this program was a fundamental barrier in providing timely support to families, who ultimately went without benefits for at least half of the school year. In this report, we dive into the challenges state administrators faced in launching this new program during the 2020–21 school year and reflect on considerations for the future.
As the US economy shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state administrators for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—the nation’s primary program for helping families with low incomes meet basic needs while supporting their transition to economic mobility through work opportunities—faced new challenges operating the program and meeting their clients’ needs. For families previously or newly receiving TANF, the pandemic made it harder to meet the work and activity requirements necessary to continue receiving benefits. Many state TANF administrators and agencies responded to the pandemic and stay-at-home orders by adjusting their policies to meet their states’ and families’ unique situations, needs, and challenges. In this brief, we describe how some of these agencies adapted their policies during the early months of the pandemic.
This Urban Institute report explores the impact of benefit cliffs, plateaus, and trade-offs on families receiving public assistance, examining how changes in earnings affect access to essential benefits like SNAP, Medicaid, and housing subsidies.
