Economic Mobility Catalog

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Strategies
September 14, 2022
Reducing obstacles to receiving public benefits

Reducing obstacles to receiving public benefits

Contributors
Pamela Herd
Heather Hahn
Sam Brennan

Last Revised: March 5, 2026

Issue Areas
Financial security Health and well-being
Outcomes
Stable and healthy families Effective and inclusive government

Strategy overview

  • Ensuring eligible residents receive benefits: Local governments can advance upward mobility for residents by removing barriers that prevent eligible households from accessing public benefits. These barriers often fall into three categories: learning (difficulty knowing what benefits are available), compliance (time, effort, and administrative burden), and psychological costs (frustration and anxiety). Successful efforts to increase enrollment and benefit receipt include simplifying information about benefits and eligibility; reforming application and delivery processes to be more human-centered; and integrating enrollment processes so residents can apply for multiple benefits programs at the same time. Comprehensive benefits reform should concentrate on reducing and simplifying every stage of the application process, as each additional step increases the burden on applicants.

  • Simplifying information: Information about public benefits eligibility is notoriously difficult to understand, and applications are often burdensome to complete. Outreach materials and eligibility information written in clear, easy-to-understand language can yield multiple benefits. Residents are more likely to learn about and apply for programs for which they are eligible and to complete applications fully and accurately. For public sector staff, fewer applications requiring clarification or follow-up can reduce delays and backlogs and free up capacity to deliver benefits.

  • Creating a more “human-centered” experience: Understanding the physical and digital experience of interacting with local government can be a powerful lever for improving outcomes for residents. Effective strategies include providing in-person “navigator” assistance, reducing the time required for in-person appointments, and offering greater scheduling flexibility to accommodate work and family obligations. Additional enrollment services can also be provided digitally, via an easy-to-navigate website or mobile applications. When governments already have relevant information, they should use it and minimize unnecessary documentation requirements. In some cases, allowing self-attestation can be a useful option. These efforts can also support broader goals of building trust in government services and demonstrating institutional competence.

  • Integrating benefits: One of the most effective ways to ensure residents receive all benefits for which they are eligible is by consolidating applications so that residents can apply for multiple programs at the same time. Another approach is auto-referring residents to programs for which they are likely eligible. Data sharing agreements and proper privacy policies can be created to facilitate this process.

Reducing obstacles to receiving public benefits by providing assistance to applicants and reducing administrative burden are proven strategies to increase benefit uptake without increasing fraud. This strategy is widely recognized as a best practice among experts in social services and public administration, and ongoing research is being conducted.

  • A 2024 quasi-experimental study found that streamlining income verification requirements for a rental assistance program increased application approval rates by 7.5 to 13.2 percentage points, without significantly affecting the program’s ability to detect fraudulent applications.
  • A 2019 randomized control trial found that providing information and offering application assistance to elderly households identified as likely eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) increased take-up by 12 percentage points, which represents a 200 percent increase relative to the control group.

Before making investments in this strategy, city and county leaders should ensure this strategy addresses local needs.

The Urban Institute and Mathematica have developed indicator frameworks to help local leaders assess conditions related to upward mobility, identify barriers, and guide investments to address these challenges. These indicator frameworks can serve as a starting point for self-assessment, not as a comprehensive evaluation, and should be complemented by other forms of local knowledge.

The Urban Institute's Upward Mobility Framework identifies a set of key local conditions that shape communities’ ability to advance upward mobility and racial equity. Local leaders can use the Upward Mobility Framework to better understand the factors that improve upward mobility and prioritize areas of focus. Data reports for cities and counties can be created here.

Several indicators in the Upward Mobility Framework may be improved with investments in reducing obstacles to receiving public benefits. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in these interventions could help, examine the following:

Mathematica's Education-to-Workforce (E-W) Indicator Framework helps local leaders identify the data that matter most in helping students and young adults succeed. Local leaders can use the E-W framework to better understand education and workforce conditions in their communities and to identify strategies that can improve outcomes in these areas.

Several indicators in the E-W Framework may be improved with investments in this strategy. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in this strategy could help, examine the following:

  • Health insurance coverage: Percentage of individuals with health insurance or percentage of eligible individuals (children or adults) enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP.

  • Food security: Percentage of individuals with high or marginal food security, as measured by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Security Survey Module or percentage of individuals living in a census track with low access to healthy food, as defined by the USDA’s Food Access Research Atlas.

  • Access to affordable housing

  • Devote time to problem definition and identification up front: Public benefits processes often contain barriers that vary by jurisdiction. These may include residents lacking necessary information, the number of steps required to complete an application, or the number of required appointments or points of contact. The more steps in a process, the more likely residents are to drop off during sign-up, even when policymakers assume those steps are simple. This makes it essential to avoid assumptions and clearly investigate the issues at hand. Program administrators deeply familiar with a process may lose sight of what it is like for an individual to go through the application process.

  • Balancing enrollment access and the appropriate level of verification procedures: There is a common assumption that reducing administrative burden or documentation requirements necessarily increases the risk of fraud, but experts indicate this is not accurate in practice. Convoluted eligibility processes that rely heavily on applicant-provided documentation can actually increase errors compared to streamlined, back-end verification approaches.

  • Leverage technology to simplify application and recertification processes: Agencies can use existing data to reduce unnecessarily long application and recertification processes. Strategies include pre-populating forms, sharing back-end data across programs when appropriate, and offering telephone or electronic signatures. Additional options include online appointments, document uploads, and advance notification calls to alert recipients when a case manager will be reaching out.

  • Conduct data-driven outreach, application, and retention efforts: Outreach and program efforts should be informed by both quantitative and qualitative data to ensure initiatives are well-targeted. Approaches may include focused outreach to ZIP codes with the largest participation gaps, cross-referencing client data to identify eligibility for additional programs, and using digital advertising to reach underrepresented populations

  • Place human dignity at the center: Any effort to improve public benefits access must prioritize those most impacted. This applies to every stage, from problem identification to piloting changes and user testing approaches. Because public benefits are essential for maintaining a decent standard of living, any disruptions should be carefully considered. Focus groups with recipients, proactive engagement with advocates, and the creation of advisory councils are all fruitful strategies to embed fairness in this work.

  • Pay attention to the specific access needs of subgroups: Programs serve diverse recipients, and different subgroups often have distinct needs. For example, younger residents may prefer a mobile-first experience, while older residents may benefit from more in-person support. Human-centered design techniques, such as journey-mapping, can help uncover diverse needs. Furthermore, government agencies should embrace a multifaceted approach to outreach and benefits access.

  • Thoughtful use of automation and technology: Technological automation or artificial intelligence can help speed up routine backend tasks, provide basic information to recipients, and apply verification rules. However, caution is needed, particularly with AI or chatbots that directly interact with benefit applicants. Experts also note that technology can perpetuate biases present in the data it was trained on, and automation can sometimes intensify existing inequalities. At the same time, there are genuine opportunities for technology-driven improvements.

  • Executive and agency leadership: Leaders of public agencies undertaking public benefits access reforms should establish a clear, agency-wide vision for this work and emphasize its importance in achieving programmatic goals and effectively serving residents.

  • Frontline staff: Reforms should be co-designed with existing staff. Their experiences are essential for mapping current processes, identifying bottlenecks, and highlighting areas for improvement. Organizations need to ensure frontline staff are heard, recognized, and valued as experts on benefit processes.

  • Program participants: Residents directly affected by burdensome public benefit policies are best positioned to describe how these policies function in practice and where reforms are most needed.

  • Lawyers: Involving lawyers is important when streamlining processes, especially those with statutory requirements. Legal input ensures reforms comply with existing laws while supporting the overarching goals of improving access. Sometimes, burdensome application processes are based on faulty interpretations of the law, which simply privilege the status quo.

  • Information Technology team: The IT team is a critical partner in reducing public benefits barriers, given the importance of robust back-end systems for streamlining eligibility checks, user-friendly websites, and case management programs.

  • Program administrators: New benefit form designs and workflows should be developed in collaboration with program administrators to ensure compliance with key program requirements. When outside design or user-experience professionals are involved, existing program staff should remain engaged, as they will be responsible for maintaining and operating the systems over the long term.

  • Community organizations: Community organizations provide essential insight into the barriers certain populations face in accessing benefits. As trusted sources, they can also support outreach and engagement efforts to improve application, renewal, and service processes.

  • Civic tech organizations: Partnering with civic tech organizations allows local governments to leverage technical expertise to ease implementation. This can complement or precede the development of an in-house civic technology team.

  • Philanthropy: Philanthropic partners can support pilot projects and user-testing research, providing a foundation for larger-scale government reforms and long-term improvements.

  • “Mobile first” and “mobile responsive” websites: Many people access the internet primarily through mobile devices, yet many public websites and benefits applications are not mobile-compatible. Online forms should require minimal typing, display progress toward completion, be accessible to people with visual impairments, and use plain, easy-to-understand language. User-friendly mobile web platforms are an impactful way to develop diverse points of entry for individuals seeking benefits.

  • Co-create with residents with lived experience: When rethinking processes related to public benefits—enrollment, benefit receipt, appointments, and more—solicit input from residents who have firsthand experience with these systems. Residents provide valuable perspectives on barriers, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement. To ensure input is inclusive, provide compensation, schedule sessions outside of working hours, and offer childcare when needed.

  • Procurement is critical: Efforts to modernize the often unwieldy IT systems that support public benefits are frequently constrained by lengthy procurement processes. Revisiting procurement regulations can help broaden the pool of vendors to include modern civic tech organizations, beyond large legacy contractors, enabling more agile and innovative solutions.

  • Start small, evaluate pilots, then scale: After gathering input and developing new designs or processes, test reforms on a small scale. Starting with the benefits programs that reach the largest number of people can maximize impact and help build the case for broader implementation. Collect data on how changes are working, identify areas for improvement, and scale reforms once challenges have been addressed. While piloting may extend the timeline, it can increase the likelihood of successful implementation.

  • Invest in the required resources for success: Reducing public benefits obstacles requires upfront investment in engagement, conversations, and capacity. This often includes technology infrastructure and dedicated staff focused on customer experience or process improvement to ensure sustained attention to implementation.

  • Build capacity for analysis and evaluation: New products and processes should include mechanisms to track how residents are being served. For digital tools, administrators should be able to identify where applicants experience confusion, how long applications take to complete, and the time between submission and benefits receipt. Applicants should also be able to track their application status and understand when benefits will be delivered. Online and in-person surveys or focus groups can help capture resident experiences and identify areas for improvement.

  • Benefit access timeliness and take-up rates: A core metric for governments is the time it takes applicants to complete the benefits process and the percentage of eligible residents who access the program.

  • Error rates: Track how frequently errors occur in the distribution of benefits, including eligibility determinations and the accuracy of benefit amounts or services provided.

  • Customer satisfaction and experience: What gets measured matters. In addition to error rates, governments should track recipient experience, including ease of use and psychological costs. Surveys and focus groups can help measure customer experience and trust in government service delivery. Passive data collection (e.g. metadata from systems about time spent applying) can be leveraged to understand recipient experience. Pairing objective measures with subjective feedback can help assess whether applicants feel processes have improved or become less stressful.

  • Mix short-term rapid assessments with long-term rigorous evaluations: Performance measurement should be complemented by more rigorous evaluation approaches, allowing for continuous improvement alongside low-stakes, rapid-cycle learning.

  • Acknowledge challenges with disentangling effects: Governments often implement multiple changes simultaneously, making it difficult to isolate the impact of individual reforms. Progress may also be uneven as users and staff adapt to new systems. This underscores the importance of carefully selecting performance measures, timing evaluations thoughtfully, and planning in advance how changes will be assessed.

Contributors

Pamela Herd

Pamela Herd is the Carol Kakalec Kohn Professor of Social Policy and faculty associate at the Institute for Social Research Population Studies Center. Her research focuses on inequality and how it intersects with health, aging, and policy. She is also an expert in survey research and biodemographic methods. She is currently one of the Co-Principal Investigators for General Social Survey, an Investigator with the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey, and Chair of the NIH Data Advisory Board for the National Study of Adolescent Health.

Professor Herd also researches administrative burden, or the bureaucratic obstacles that people encounter when trying to access government benefits, services, and rights. She is especially interested in how this burden is both shaped by and further reinforces inequality. Her book Administrative Burden, Policymaking by Other Means has received numerous awards, was reviewed in the New York Review of Books, and has helped influence state and federal policy reforms, including recent executive orders by the Biden Administration. She frequently writes and speaks on these topics to media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, NPR, and the PBS NewsHour.

In addition to her book awards, Professor Herd has received the Outstanding Public Engagement in Health Policy Award from the American Political Science Association, the Kohl Award, the AARP Innovation Award, and the Wilder School Award for Scholarship in Social Equity in Public Policy Analysis, given by the National Academy of Public Administration.

Heather Hahn

Heather Hahn is associate vice president for management in the Family and Financial Well-Being Division at the Urban Institute. She is a national expert on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) with two decades of experience conducting nonpartisan research on policies affecting the well-being of children and families, including TANF, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), child care subsidies, child support, and other supports for families with low incomes. She co-leads Urban’s From Safety Net to Solid Ground initiative, providing timely and rigorous analyses of state and federal policy changes, and the Kids’ Share project, examining federal spending and tax expenditures on children. Hahn also co-led the Work Support Strategies evaluation of state efforts to modernize families’ access to nutrition assistance, child care, and Medicaid. She has extensive experience leading projects, designing and conducting case studies, and listening to the people administering and participating in programs supporting families experiencing poverty. Hahn has authored dozens of reports and has considerable experience disseminating research to diverse audiences. She has testified before Congress and has been interviewed and quoted by major print and radio media, including NPR, the Washington Post, the New York Times, National Review, the Atlantic, and USA Today.

Previously, Hahn was an assistant director for education, workforce, and income security issues at the US Government Accountability Office. She received an MPP from Duke University and a PhD in political science from Stanford University.

Sam Brennan

As a Design Director at Civilla, Sam Brennan works toward expanding the agencies and institutions that Civilla supports. Previously, he was a key leader in the redesign of Michigan’s benefits application, renewals, and correspondence. He also led the team’s effort to enable same-day processing for benefits across the state.

Sam came to Civilla with a background in public service, working as a team lead for City Year Detroit in 2012 and as a Challenge Detroit Fellow in 2013. He specializes in policy analysis—diving deep on requirements, identifying opportunities to streamline systems, and helping the team understand what’s possible. Sam holds a degree from Kalamazoo College where he studied anthropology.

Learn more:
Urban Institute, Strategies for Improving Public Benefits Access and Retention MEF Associates, Coordinating to Improve Family Experiences Toolkit: Resources for State and Local Human Services Agencies