Code for America discusses the importance of a people-centered, digital-first safety net. Tools of technology, policy, and good implementation can advance a bold vision that will allow the nation to push through the end of the COVID-19 crisis.
This report describes how the government can use widespread social media feedback and begin to build long-term measures to center people’s experience as an important component of policy design
The US Digital response partnered with dozens of states, counties, and cities to support them in using and tracking CARES Act grants. This article presents six lessons learned from their work to help governments better assist residents, particularly small businesses and low-income communities.
This tool kit brings together emergent best practices, workflows, and tools that communities, educators, mutual aid groups, designers, artists and activists are using for community building, and how design needs to change to best suit people, right now.
Due to technology’s disruptive force in society and on the labor force, it is necessary to revisit the relationship between employees, governments, and citizens. This report asserts that the next president should immediately sign two Executive Orders (EOs) to address the current work crisis and the urgent economic emergency that has left Americans evicted, unable to pay bills, make rent, or put food on the table.
Innovators inside and outside of government are working to improve access to the social safety net using data, technology, and design. This report highlights innovations carried out by The Rockefeller Foundation’s Data and Technology grantees from 2018 to 2021, including extraordinary efforts to meet the challenges of the pandemic. Those grantees are: Benefits Data Trust, Code for America, Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation, U.S. Digital Response, and the Digital Innovation and Governance Initiative at New America. In 2020, these projects secured more than $200 million in benefits for close to 100,000 people across at least 36 states, and helped millions more through policy change, training, and guidance.
Code for America initially introduced the concept of Delivery-Driven Government in 2018. This article refreshes its original principles and expands on what the organization has learned to make its concepts clearer.
The vast fraud committed through the use of stolen and synthetic identities in UI programs has spotlighted the need for updated identity fraud detection mechanisms. As states are implementing new technologies and systems, they need to consider the ways in which they are impacting racial inequities in UI benefits.
This Urban Institute article argues that poverty is driven by structural barriers rather than individual choices and advocates for safety net programs that address systemic inequities.
County workers typically spend most of their time trying to get income information right during eligibility interviews. This article provides several recommendations for asking about income, accounting for cognitive biases, under-reporting, and complexities in reporting income.
