This article explores how anticipatory logics—drawing from foresight, futures thinking, and design—are shaping the future of government by creating space for innovative policy approaches, public participation, and proactive governance.
Professor Don Moynihan discusses how administrative burden is an effective tool to make it difficult for people to access certain types of benefits, noting that this is particularly harmful to communities of color.
This article analyzes the strategic use of public policy as a tool for reshaping public opinion. Though progressive revisionists in the 1990s argued that reforming welfare could produce a public more willing to invest in anti-poverty efforts, welfare reform in the 1990s did little to shift public opinion. This study investigates the general conditions under which mass feedback effects should be viewed as more or less likely.
This article examines how the decentralization of safety net programs after welfare reform has led to growing inequality in benefit generosity and access across U.S. states.
The exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers—predominantly African Americans—from the 1935 Social Security Act's unemployment insurance program is analyzed as a result of international policy diffusion rather than solely domestic racial politics.
This report examines how the U.S. federal government can enhance the efficiency and equity of benefit delivery by simplifying eligibility rules and using a Rules as Code approach for digital systems.
This landscape analysis examines data, design, technology, and innovation-enabled approaches that make it easier for eligible people to enroll in, and receive, federally-funded social safety net benefits, with a focus on the earliest adaptations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Well-designed, user-focused tools that allow for simple application are key to ensuring that families most in need receive the Child Tax Credit. Reaching these households will require a robust effort from the IRS to create user-friendly tools in partnership with organizations with a direct connection to eligible recipients.
This book is an in-depth exploration of federal programs and controversial legislation demonstrating that administrative burden has long existed in policy design, preventing citizens from accessing fundamental rights. Further discussion of how policymakers can minimize administrative burden to reduce inequality, boost civic engagement, and build an efficient state.
This foundational article develops the concept of administrative burden, defining it as the learning, psychological, and compliance costs individuals face when interacting with government, and argues that these burdens are often shaped by political choices.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
