Accessing safety net benefits can involve complicated and duplicative processes that create barriers to access. Using cross-enrollment strategies can minimize the difficulties community members face in getting access to life-saving resources.
WIC enrollment has declined over the past decade, but evidence from randomized control trials indicates that using data from other programs to identify WIC-eligible families and following up with text-based outreach can boost program participation.
A study by the Urban Institute assessing why around 12 million individuals were at risk of not getting stimulus check payments as provided by the CARES Act.
Medicaid enrollees must renew their eligibility every 12 months, resulting in extensive “churn,” whereby eligible people continuously cycle on and off of Medicaid instead of remaining continuously enrolled. States can use detailed SNAP income data to reduce churn and thus reduce the burden on beneficiaries and agencies.
Aggressive outreach by states is necessary to ensure that 12 million Americans do not risk missing out on the stimulus payments provided by the CARES Act.
Code for America partnered with the CBPP, Civilla, and Nava to launch the Integrated Benefits Initiative, testing and piloting human-centered approaches to improve outcomes and learn what an optimal safety net could look like. This article describes key takeaways from short-term pilots implemented as part of this project.
Hennepin County, Minnesota, partnered with Code for America to develop a six-month long experiment where participants were given the option to submit the normal paper-based application or opt into an online application.
Applying UX research methods, the City of San Jose worked to improve how low-income and non-English speaking residents engaged with My San Jose, a website and mobile app for residents to report neighborhood issues to cities. They used a Spanish and Vietnamese translator to conduct interviews with target users, then detailed major findings and corresponding recommendations in this report.
Although Medicaid and SNAP participants are automatically income-eligible for WIC, many don’t enroll. Pilot projects in four states have shown that matching data across programs to identify these families and conducting outreach to them can increase WIC enrollment.
