There’s a cliff that so many of our families are standing on. They are staring down at the edge and one small thing could be just enough to throw them over.
Where we are
Millions of American families face financial shocks every year like an unexpected medical bill, the loss of income, a raise in rent, or loans coming out of deferment.
As a result of a tangled web of information about services, burdensome application processes, and payment systems, many families miss out on getting critical support to re-establish financial stability. More than a quarter of eligible people facing a financial shock receive no help from any Federally funded program, and Benefits Data Trust estimates that across just five programs, more than $60 billion/year in benefits are unclaimed1. And even for the families that do get access to benefits, millions waste countless hours and miss important days of work getting the help they qualify for and need. Transitioning to better jobs often requires training and gaining new skills, but this can be difficult for people to manage while still working to cover day-to-day essentials.
Of Americans who face a financial shock, 38% of Americans would face difficulty absorbing an emergency expense of $400.2
1 in 4 workers rely on safety net benefits at some point each year.3
1 Source: Benefits Data Trust
2 Source: Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2021, Federal Reserve
Our approach
To start, we listened to people’s stories.
The Life Experience research team spoke with people nationwide about this moment in their lives and where the government process could have been simpler and more helpful. The listening sessions captured honest conversations about peoples' experiences, candid feedback on what could have worked better, and what really made a difference for them. Their stories have been combined and are represented here through illustrations. The quotes are real, but names have been changed.
The team conducted interviews in-person, virtually, in English, and in Spanish. Participants included people nine states and territories who represent a variety of life experiences—including those vulnerable to shocks, such as low-wage workers.
The team spoke with:
- 61 members of the public
- 12 frontline staff
- 17 state/program administrators
- 33 subject matter experts
Discovery insights
Framing for collective thinking about customer pain points
How might we improve people’s experience navigating and applying for different benefits at the same time to increase awareness, avoid confusion and redundancy, thereby improving efficiency for both program administrators and customers?
How might we encourage states and localities to use their federal funds to help people more quickly re-establish stability with available resources, and design with the most common financial shocks that may occur in mind?
How might we think about recovery and resiliency to include how we empower people through career transitions to better jobs and lasting stability?
Design Phase
Designing customer-centered solutions
View progress on our milestonesIn the 2023 design phase, the portfolio consisted of two pilot projects:
- Improving data services for benefits delivery developed an additional workstream focused on a rapid response for Medicaid renewals as the national Public Health Emergency formally concluded and supported millions of people across five States renewing their Medicaid coverage.
- Supporting States to streamline access to benefits is working with 20 States and non-profit organizations to develop cross-program policy tools, guidance, and resources to support State benefits delivery transformation efforts.
The project seeks to improve automated benefits determinations for people facing financial shock by improving underlying Federal data infrastructure. Benefits programs rely on income verification to determine eligibility. In cases where programs cannot verify income data, applicants must manually verify their income, a burdensome and time-consuming process. By improving income verification services and improving the quality of verification data coverage, the Federal government can better leverage existing Federal data systems and, in doing so, greatly improve the customer experience of applying for and seeking enrollment in benefits programs that use these systems. Longer term, improvements in income verification can potentially be piloted across agencies with benefits programs to improve the experience of individuals applying to multiple benefits programs.
Project objectives
The improving data services project will pilot improvements for benefits-related income verification services and determinations for Federal and State-administered benefits programs. It will also explore using these improvements across additional benefits programs, such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families).
December 2023 update
The United States Digital Services (USDS)-led Data Services team is seeking to reduce the administrative burden of navigating Federal programs using data and technology. The team’s work in 2023 focused on improving Federal services used to verify income during application and renewals, as well as providing direct technical assistance to States managing Medicaid renewals during the unwinding of the national Public Health Emergency.
Medicaid renewals rapid response. With the unwinding of the national Public Health Emergency, States restarted eligibility renewals for more than 90 million people covered by Medicaid. This renewal volume has caused significant operational challenges for States and placed a considerable burden on Medicaid recipients seeking to renew. To tackle this challenge, USDS deployed a rapid response team to provide direct technical assistance to States to understand and identify opportunities to streamline and simplify State workload and customer experience. Through this work, the Center for Medicaid & CHIP Services (CMCS), USDS, and State partners identified an error in State eligibility systems that resulted in erroneous coverage losses for over 500,000 children and families[1]. Thanks to the hard work, all 500,000+ people will have their Medicaid coverage reinstated across nearly 30 States. Beyond the resolution of this error, the rapid response team’s efforts on the ground in States have enabled millions of people to be renewed for Medicaid, as required by law, using existing data (ex parte), significantly reducing the burden on individuals and preventing administrative churn[2], in particular for children. Rapid response teams have also implemented customer experience improvements with State partners, from improving renewal websites to redesigning the envelopes that package mailed notices.
Income verification as a service. Federally funded, State-administered programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF require income verification as an essential part of eligibility determinations. Electronic verification processes are currently restricted to serving traditional earners (those that receive an annual Federal W-2 tax form) and lack the means for verifying non-traditional earners (those that receive a form 1099, “gig” laborers, and populations that lack specific types of personal information like Social Security numbers). The Income Verification team partnered with CMS and SNAP to pilot technology improvements to the verification process, which aim to reduce administrative burden, expand electronic verifications for all earners, and provide more efficient and integrated service to enable cross-enrollment and minimize duplication of effort (and costs) by State administrators.
[1] https://www.medicaid.gov/sites/default/files/2023-08/state-ltr-ensuring-renewal-compliance.pdf
[2] Administrative churn occurs when an individual is disenrolled, likely due to the administrative burden of renewal processes, and then re-applies within a short period. Medicaid churning and continuity of care [ASPE, 2021]
Milestones
Measures of success
Key outcomes:
Successfully improving data services will decrease the time needed for benefits eligibility determinations, improve benefit verification (by increasing automatic verifications and the quality of the source data), increase sharing of data or supporting systems for eligibility determinations, and decrease the manual burden on applicants.
Design phase project measures:
The project, also known as the Accelerator, aims to help States adopt leading practices and innovate in Federal benefits delivery towards the goal of allowing families to apply for a suite of core benefits in 20 minutes and receive eligibility determinations within a day. This fast, simple access to multiple benefits is critical to help families weather financial disruptions such as a job loss, broken-down car, or unexpected bill that can often start a downward financial spiral. The Accelerator will provide multi-program tools, guidance, and templates to support State delivery transformation efforts in Medicaid, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), CCDF (Child Care and Development Fund), LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program), and other means-tested benefits that serve low-income families. The Accelerator will look to identify best practices, build products and services that help States replicate them, and identify opportunities for further Federal support for State innovation. The Accelerator will work with States to identify policy, resource, regulatory, staffing, technological, and other barriers to running efficient integrated benefits delivery, and work to systematically overcome those challenges through better cross-program decision-making and coordinated action.
Project objectives
In the first year, the Accelerator will focus on two areas: providing tools for improving procurement or development of state benefits technology systems, and providing clear guidance to States on best practice multi-program delivery methods. The Accelerator will conduct research with a cohort of States to validate and develop solutions that address procurement and IT modernization challenges. The Accelerator will also develop interagency guidance and templates on high-value topics to support state delivery (such as multi-program text messaging guidance).
December 2023 update
In 2023, the Supporting States (“Accelerator”) team collaborated with the Aspen Institute Financial Resilience Program to convene six monthly workgroups focused on remediating delivery barriers States face: data-sharing, operations, policy and requirements, procurement, talent, and text messaging and notifications. Twenty States have attended regular meetings, including Federal staff, stakeholders, and independent experts. States are identifying specific challenges, sharing insights, and beginning to develop valuable resources. The Accelerator team also organized a training led by agency colleagues at the Federal Communication Commission to clarify permissible uses of text messaging to communicate with benefits program participants. The team is developing data sharing and reuse guidance to facilitate State use of Federal and third-party data for verifications. The team is exploring State solutions to address talent needs and better incorporate human-centered design and collection of feedback on lived experiences into program operations. The team is developing other supports for State operations in text messaging, plain language notices, call centers, and account access. The team also conducted research with States and experts to identify and prioritize leading procurement practices for benefits programs for potential Federal pilots to come.
Milestones
Measures of success
Key outcomes:
Develop tools and guidance for States to streamline policies and benefit determination operations and modernize their IT systems for public benefits management. The long-term outcome is accelerating State delivery of the multi-program 20-minute application and reach eligibility determinations in one day.
Design phase project measures:
Project Documentation
- Project Charter
- Project One-Sheet
- Design Project Summary: Improving Data Services for Benefits Delivery
- Design Project Summary: Supporting States to Streamline Access to Benefits
- Customer Journey Map & Stories
- Information collection approved under OMB Control #3206-0276
- Life Experience Initiative Summary
- Executive Order 14058
- President’s Management Agenda
Project Outputs
Agency collaborators
- General Services Administration (GSA)
- Department of Labor (DOL)
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
- Department of Education (ED)
- Department of Health & Human Services (HHS)
- U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury)
- Social Security Administration (SSA)
