This guide consolidates learning and spotlights principles, insights, and emerging practices to guide municipal leaders and public-private partnerships interested in designing basic income programs that are ethical, equitable, rigorous, informative, and consequential for local, state and national policymaking.
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.
The Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program was launched as an effort to address the loss of access to free and reduced-price school meals due to widespread school closures at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools reopened in a shifting mix of fully virtual, hybrid, and inperson formats and families lacked consistent access to school meals, these benefits were extended through the 2020–21 school year and were highly valuable to families in buffering the full extent of food insecurity they may have faced during this uncertain time. However, the complexity of administering this program was a fundamental barrier in providing timely support to families, who ultimately went without benefits for at least half of the school year. In this report, we dive into the challenges state administrators faced in launching this new program during the 2020–21 school year and reflect on considerations for the future.
This report highlights 5 key takeaways from the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program's 2022 Benefits Forum, where 55 experts from various sectors discussed solutions for improving public and private benefits to better support workers and their families.
Research identified five key obstacles that researchers, activists, and advocates face in efforts to open critical public conversations about AI’s relationship with inequity and advance needed policies.
This white paper documents Hawai'i's journey and lessons learned from their 18-month Coordinating SNAP and Nutrition Supports project which laid the foundation for interagency data-sharing and built capacity to analyze administrative data across nutrition programs--specifically SNAP and WIC.
Based on state agency survey responses, this report summarizes key findings from the first calendar year of pandemic response and provides policy considerations for the future of SNAP.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
This report summarizes findings and observations on the implementation of Phase 1 of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Open UI Initiative, highlighting effective strategies, challenges, opportunities, and recommendations for supporting states’ UI modernization efforts.
This resource describes how different agencies have updated their systems to increase online and mobile access to benefits information and applications, including using text messages to share benefits information with residents.
This report shares the results of our comprehensive content audit and heuristic evaluation of eligibility pre-screeners, including ratings on security, mobile-friendly design, accessibility, and more.
A modernized public benefits system would better serve program participants, administrators, policy makers, and taxpayers. This paper proposes a set of principles both define the desired future state and outline the values that shape decision making along the way. Practices describe the processes needed to achieve modernization.
