The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and its induced recession underscored the crucial importance of unemployment insurance (UI) to workers, and to the stability of the American economy. Temporary federal expansions of unemployment systems during the pandemic showed how they can quickly be scaled to increase benefit levels and to include categories of workers who were not previously eligible, such as the self-employed, caregivers, and low-wage workers. And, states showed that separate programs can be set up to provide similar benefits to workers who are explicitly excluded from unemployment insurance—in particular immigrants who do not have a documented immigration status.
This brief provides research recommendations to improve programs serving LGBT youth, focusing on homelessness and sexual health education services funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
This report explores strategies for developing a new generation of technologists dedicated to public interest work, emphasizing the need for a stronger talent pipeline to support government and nonprofit technology initiatives.
This report discusses the financial resilience strategies families used to manage gaps before benefits arrived, in addition to providing recommendations for how benefits can be better designed in the future to fit the financial lives of lower-income households.
Report by the Aspen Institute discussing Benefits21, a multi-stakeholder, multi-faceted initiative to integrate and modernize benefits systems. This paper provides an overview of Benefits21, along with a discussion of the shortcomings of current public and private benefit systems.
There is a key disconnect between policymakers’ intent and implementation of policies. A user-centric, iterative, and data-driven approach can result result in digital technology that provides much needed data and insights at a substantially lower cost.
This profile on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Open Source Program Office, the first of its kind in the federal government, showcasing how it advances transparency, collaboration, and innovation across agencies through open source software.
The team aimed to automate applying rules efficiently by creating computable policies, recognizing the need for AI tools to convert legacy policy content into automated business rules using Decision Model Notation (DMN) for effective processing and monitoring.
A case study on how North Carolina leveraged human-centered design, interagency collaboration, and data-sharing strategies to improve cross-enrollment in SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid, aiming to reduce administrative burden and better serve families.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
A practical, plain-language guide offering public-sector procurement and technology teams actionable tools and best practices for procuring AI responsibly and effectively.
