Michigan's UIA director, Julia Dale, is leading the agency through transition by prioritizing lived experience, hope, grit, and values. Virginia's SNAP Program Manager, Michele Thomas, highlighted the success of Sun Bucks, a summer EBT child nutrition program that fed over 700,000 kids in its first year.
The GAO placed the UI system on its High Risk List in June 2022, leading the DOL to develop a transformation plan detailing activities and strategies for building a resilient UI system capable of responding effectively to future economic challenges.
This resource provides an overview of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment & Training (SNAP E&T) program, highlighting state implementation strategies, funding mechanisms, and policy opportunities to strengthen workforce participation among SNAP recipients.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
The Lost in the Labyrinth brief examines how fragmented early care and education (ECE) programs across the U.S. create challenges for families seeking services for young children.
Through the ACCESS project, key collaborators have shared insights into current and future opportunities for alignment within their agencies, including potential enablers for and barriers to alignment activities.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
This report recommends updating the methodology used by the Census Bureau to calculate the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to reflect household basic needs and replace the current Official Poverty Measure as the primary statistical measure of poverty. The report assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the SPM and provides recommendations for updating its methodology and expanding its use in recognition of the needs of most American families such as medical care, childcare, and housing costs.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
This resource provides guidance on streamlining enrollment across public benefit programs to improve efficiency, reduce administrative burdens, and enhance access for eligible individuals and families.
This brief highlights the complex journey that older adults experience when applying for and enrolling in SNAP, including the major barriers and solutions that improve access along the way.
In recent years, there has been a deliberate shift to move our public systems that support child and family well-being upstream. These efforts reflect the growing consensus that true and lasting progress toward a nation where everyone can thrive requires we get to the root of the barriers that keep people and communities from achieving their potential. A foundational building block of this effort is the work happening to advance prevention strategies within child welfare agencies. In this brief, we focus on the challenges and opportunities that the Family First Prevention Services Act (Family First) offers to accelerate the shift toward a prevention-oriented child well-being system.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
This interactive dashboard allows users to explore Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and household characteristics by U.S. congressional district using American Community Survey data.
Policymakers, program administrators, federal leaders, researchers, and advocates are increasingly focused on using administrative data to build evidence for improving government programs. Achieving this goal requires accessible data sources and the capacity to use them, yet stakeholders have little information about the baseline level of state capacity in these areas. How does one measure concepts such as “effective data use” and “analytic capacity?” This brief reports findings from a pioneering and comprehensive needs assessment that examined the capacity of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs in 54 U.S. states and territories to analyze data used for program improvement, monitoring, and evidence-building. The needs assessment provides a foundation for technical assistance and continued improvement for the TANF program and may also provide valuable insights and frameworks for other state-administered human services programs.
