Service Delivery Area: Benefits
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Social Listening: Covid-19, Social Media, and The Path to a Better Safety Net
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
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An Examination of Medicaid Renewal Outcomes and Enrollment Changes at the End of the Unwinding
There were over 25 million Medicaid disenrollments in 2023, but national enrollment remained significantly above pre-pandemic levels at over 56 million, with notable state-level variations and near-recovery of child enrollment.
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Sprint 2 Report: Michigan Unemployment – Improving the delivery of unemployment insurance benefits
The Sprint 2 Report: Michigan UI Claimant Experience by Civilla and New America examines challenges in Michigan’s unemployment insurance (UI) system and provides human-centered design recommendations to improve accessibility, clarity, and user experience.
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Digital Identity Updates from the Digital Benefits Network at BenCon 2024
Announcements include the Digital Identity Community of Practice, updates on research with NIST and CDT, and upcoming data set.
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mRelief at Policy2Code Demo Day at BenCon 2024
The team conducted experiments to determine whether clients would be responsive to proactive support offered by a chatbot, and identify the ideal timing of the intervention.
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PolicyEngine at Policy2Code Demo Day at BenCon 2024
The team developed an AI-powered explanation feature that effectively translates complex, multi-program policy calculations into clear and accessible explanations, enabling users to explore "what-if" scenarios and understand key factors influencing benefit amounts and eligibility thresholds.
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POVERTY LAWGORITHMS: A Poverty Lawyer’s Guide to Fighting Automated Decision-Making Harms on Low-Income Communities
This guide, directed at poverty lawyers, explains automated decision-making systems so lawyers and advocates can better identify the source of their clients' problems and advocate on their behalf. Relevant for practitioners, this report covers key questions around automated decision-making systems.
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Rules as Code Demo Day | Demo 2: NYC Benefits Platform Screening API | Song Hia and Ethan Lo
At Rules as Code Demo Day we heard from Song Hia of the NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity and Ethan Lo of the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation who demoed the NYC Benefits Platform Screening API which provides machine-readable calculations and criteria for benefits screening that power the ACCESS NYC screening questionnaire. This makes it easier for NYC residents to discover multiple benefits they may be eligible for. The City is now extending the API to support the new MyCity platform, a one-stop shop for all services and benefits.
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Access Denied: Faulty Automated Background Checks Freeze Out Renters
This reporting explores how algorithms used to screen prospective tenants, including those waiting for public housing, can block renters from housing based on faulty information.
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Improving Unemployment Fraud Reporting with User Research
User research + design kit in for improving the UI fraud reporting experience, available in English and Spanish
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To reimagine unemployment insurance services, start small
Building modular, open-source, human-centered software is necessary to create equitable government services fit for the digital age. Nava emphasizes addressing large scale digital service challenges by building and releasing small, modular software components that are loosely-coupled by well-defined APIs. This enables agencies to quickly and conistently deliver services that help people immediately, whilst also building a flexible foundation for long-term technical evolution.
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How to build a participant advisory council
In 2022, Nava formed its first-ever PAC as part of their initiative to help Montana’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program design a new recertification portal. Leveraging what Nava learned from this experience, this toolkit outlines the necessary steps to form a PAC, including planning a structure for the council, recruiting participants, and other logistics.