This study examines how the 2021 expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) influenced housing affordability and living arrangements for low-income families.
This paper introduces a method for auditing benefits eligibility screening tools in four steps: 1) generate test households, 2) automatically populate screening questions with household information and retrieve determinations, 3) translate eligibility guidelines into computer code to generate ground truth determinations, and 4) identify conflicting determinations to detect errors.
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 article analyses ‘digital distortions’ in Rules as Code, which refer to disconnects between regulation and code that arise from interpretive choices in the encoding process.
This report puts forth an anti-racist reimagining of Medicaid and CHIP that actively reckons with the racist history of the Medicaid program and offers principles and recommendations that capitalize on the transformative potential of the programs. The principles center the voices and agency of program participants and prioritize direct community involvement at all stages of the policy process.
This paper examines the challenges U.S. state and local digital service teams face in retaining talent and offers strategies to improve retention and team stability.
A case study describing how Massachusetts is building long-term public-sector capacity to deliver people-centered digital services by strengthening in-house expertise, shared tools, and agency-embedded support.
This study examines how providing information about administrative burden influences public support for government programs like TANF, showing that awareness of these burdens can increase favorability toward the programs and their recipients.
Medicaid and SNAP have reduced racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare access and food security, but some administrative and eligibility policies continue to create inequitable barriers.
This study found that using state-specific names for Medicaid programs increased confusion and reduced both positive and negative opinions about the program.
A tool for CDOs advocating for funding, authority, and expansion—and a primer for government leaders unfamiliar with the role. The report establishes shared vocabulary, identifies six CDO office archetypes, and offers cross-state insights on structures, priorities, and challenges.
This guide is a practical introduction to Digital Service Teams (DSTs) for state and local governments. It is designed to help leaders interested in standing up new government DSTs understand what they are, why they exist, and how they are structured, staffed, funded, and more.
