While CARES Act benefits themselves have been critical to households, their design and implementation have led to more uncertainty and volatility for lower-income households. This report discusses the financial resilience strategies families used to manage gaps before benefits arrived, in addition to providing recommendations for how benefits can be better designed in the future to fit the financial lives of lower-income households.
A modification of Bolder Advocacy’s ACT!Quick capacity self-assessment tool to incorporate additional equity-centered capacities, engage community authentically, and conduct research in culturally responsive ways.
This article examines how outdated state unemployment insurance (UI) systems struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to delays, technical failures, and widespread frustration for job seekers.
This article analyzes the strategic use of public policy as a tool for reshaping public opinion. Though progressive revisionists in the 1990s argued that reforming welfare could produce a public more willing to invest in anti-poverty efforts, welfare reform in the 1990s did little to shift public opinion. This study investigates the general conditions under which mass feedback effects should be viewed as more or less likely.
Report by the Aspen Institute discussing Benefits21, a multi-stakeholder, multi-faceted initiative to integrate and modernize benefits systems. This paper provides an overview of Benefits21, along with a discussion of the shortcomings of current public and private benefit systems.
This article explores innovative strategies to improve access to public benefits by reducing administrative barriers and leveraging technology for a more user-friendly experience.
This report describes key elements of the American Rescue Plan Act and how it would reduce the projected poverty rate for 2021. Various projections regarding the effects of the policy are described in this report.
What Works Cities helps local governments improve residents’ lives by using data and evidence effectively to tackle pressing challenges. The Certification Assessment helps cities benchmark their progress and develop a roadmap for improvement.
This article from Civil Eats explores how expanding online purchasing options for SNAP recipients can improve food security, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This article examines how the decentralization of safety net programs after welfare reform has led to growing inequality in benefit generosity and access across U.S. states.
This report evaluates state government websites for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), providing links to each state's site and assessing the information and services they offer.
Though the rhetoric of “waste, fraud, and abuse” is ubiquitous when it comes to welfare programs, low-income households receive little relief from benefits programs. Most efforts to make public benefits systems more “efficient” actually just waste time and money in practice. They instead serve to stigmatize low-income families and chip away at the little assistance that remains available to them.
