How the Biden Administration Can Fight Poverty by Ending Administrative Burdens

Thanks to pandemic aid policies like the advance payments of the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) and generous stimulus checks, Americans experienced a historic drop in poverty rates nationwide through 2020 and 2021, even amidst a raging pandemic and widespread economic uncertainty and unemployment. An analysis from the Columbia Center for Poverty projected that overall poverty fell from 12.5 percent in 2018 to a historic low of 8.5 percent in 2021, while child poverty decreased by more than 50 percent and poverty decreased among Black Americans by more than 40 percent. These data paint a picture of not just a powerful policy success but also of a portrait of millions of households across the country finally finding relief: at last, their government took decisive action to support them while they weathered circumstances outside of their control.

These revolutionary changes have come to a tragic end. Recent data show how the expiration of pandemic aid and congressional failures to extend further relief have decimated the gains they offered to so many. With crucial aid pulled out from under them, many of the 11.7 million Americans believed to have exited poverty as a result of these programs are facing mounting challenges to their economic security once again. From March 2 to March 14, 2022, 21.7 million households reported difficulty accessing food that met their family’s needs over the previous week, including 10.7 million households with children. In addition, child poverty rose 41 percent between December 2021 and February 2022—a devastating spike representing the more than 3.7 million children thought to have been pulled back under the poverty line by the December 2021 expiration of the expanded CTC.

With crucial aid pulled out from under them, many of the 11.7 million Americans believed to have exited poverty as a result of these programs are facing mounting challenges to their economic security once again

This reversion to the status quo—persistently high economic insecurity, unchecked even among children—has emphasized that for many families and communities, access to government aid can make the difference between stepping over a cliff and the chance to keep your footing and build financial resilience to meet the next challenge.

While a congressional standstill and shifting media attention threaten to unseat poverty from the top of the Biden administration’s agenda, the urgency of economic justice remains. It demands real, material help be delivered immediately to those who need it most and who face the steepest barriers to receiving it. With further funding for anti-poverty programs backed by pandemic cash set to expire soon and so many families facing a renewed threat to their survival, there’s no time to waste in supporting our low-income and working-class neighbors, and no room for excuses of political gridlock.

While the realities of a divided national legislature may, for the moment, foreclose some of the most sweeping changes to federal policies around safety net programs long hoped for by many progressives, there is also a path for meaningful change through executive action. In December 2021, the Biden administration took steps to improve the nation’s anti-poverty programs, issuing Executive Order (EO) 14058, Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery To Rebuild Trust in Government. The EO aims to address the all-too-common experience of frustration and disempowerment often associated with interactions between key government services, the people who rely on them, and the processes they must navigate in order to receive them. This EO hopes to improve trust in government by gathering and incorporating feedback on how the actual experience of seeking government services falls short of meeting the needs of those most likely to be underserved.

An excerpt from the EO outlines this philosophy:

Government must be held accountable for designing and delivering services with a focus on the actual experience of the people whom it is meant to serve. Government must also work to deliver services more equitably and effectively, especially for those who have been historically underserved. Strengthening the democratic process requires providing direct lines of feedback and mechanisms for engaging the American people in the design and improvement of Federal Government programs, processes, and services.

The purpose of this EO, while broad enough to encapsulate a whole-of-government effort, holds particular promise for tackling “administrative burdens”—a term coined to describe tedious, time-consuming requirements, and other essentially “pointless roadblocks” to access. Administrative burdens plague anti-poverty programs and lock eligible applicants out of the aid they need by setting onerous document requirements, asking invasive application questions, and burdening applicants with endless regulations large and small. With one in four households in poverty, and more than 11 million Americans report never having received benefits from any of the six major welfare benefits programs—like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC), Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), housing subsidies, or others—it’s clear an access gap facilitated by administrative burdens exists.

Under this mandate to broadly rethink service delivery, the executive order calls on the heads of agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), which control the administration of critical benefits programs for households experiencing crisis or living with insecurity, such as SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC), to look for innovative ways to improve program accessibility.

With these aims in mind, this EO is an opportunity to reach more Americans through the policies and programs already in place and give tangible support to vulnerable families, particularly those most likely to have been historically excluded from this aid, like Black and brown families and low-income communities. The Biden administration can get serious about closing that gap through executive action, beginning with taking full advantage of this EO’s aims and directives.

At the same time, many federal agencies and departments, like the USDA and HHS, have taken action during the pandemic to streamline benefits access, cutting red tape and giving recipients’ greater flexibility in applying for and maintaining their benefits, in recognition that they could not reasonably be expected to jump through the usual hoops in the midst of a global pandemic. It’s crucial these changes, which have allowed these agencies to provide more aid to more people, be preserved and built upon wherever possible under this EO. And it must not be taken for granted that these expectations were never reasonable for many households facing difficulties making ends meet—especially single parents, immigrant families, families with young children, and others who may carry additional stress and uncertainty into every interaction with government systems because they are already trying to do the most with the least support.

This EO shows that the Biden administration takes closing the access gap for all communities seriously. Taking full advantage of this EO and putting every tool in the presidents’ executive action toolbox to use will mark the test of this commitment. By imagining and advocating for a vision of equity and accessibility underpinned by this EO, we can achieve progress towards a safety net every community can count on, and refuse to accept a return to business as usual when it comes to neglecting our struggling neighbors.

Recommendation 1: Collaborate with the USPS to Simplify Address Info

Those who receive SNAP, TANF, WIC, and other welfare benefits administered by the USDA and HHS must provide local welfare agencies with up-to-date address info in order to continue to receive benefits. For clients facing housing insecurity, what may seem to some to be a simple bit of paperwork can pose a significant obstacle to receiving aid as they shuffle between temporary residences and try to regain stability with dwindling resources. Research on the experiences of homeless clients served by welfare benefits programs show that these clients often lack the information and documents commonly required to apply for benefits and keep them, because housing insecurity has left them without a consistent residential mailing address, or no way to prove their address if they have one. Because the instability housing insecurity can introduce into a family’s life puts parents and children at an increased risk of hunger, poor health outcomes, and homelessness, service delivery design should be particularly aware of the complex issues that might be standing between these applicants and receiving the benefits they need.

In a section of the EO entitled “Government-wide Actions to Improve Customer Experience,” the Biden administration calls out the need for a collaborative, comprehensive effort involving a broad swath of executive institutions to achieve the goals of this EO:

Customers often navigate services across multiple agencies in specific moments of need, such as when they are seeking financing for their businesses or experiencing food insecurity. In such situations, relevant agencies should coordinate their service delivery to achieve an integrated experience that meets customer needs through the exchange of data with appropriate privacy protections.

Building on this EO, the administration should carry this thinking further and direct the United States Postal Service (USPS) to work with welfare agencies like USDA, HHS, and their respective state and local offices to explore innovative ways to support these agencies in maintaining clients’ address records with as little information and hassle asked of the client as possible. The USPS maintains the most accurate, reliable database of household addresses in the nation, and this information should be leveraged to improve the delivery of anti-poverty benefits. This means once the USPS becomes aware a resident has changed addresses, this data should be made available to USDA and HHS to ensure benefits’ recipients continue to receive benefits with no interruptions. In alignment with language on privacy found elsewhere in the EO, client anonymity must be protected and collaborations between welfare agencies and the USPS should prioritize protecting clients’ privacy and data rights.

Recommendation 2: End In-Person Appointment Requirements

As revealed through research and listening to the experiences of direct service providers, in-person appointments pose a particularly difficult challenge to many seeking benefits for a variety of reasons, including lack of dependable transportation and stigma reinforced by invasive, probing interviewers and staff who can be prejudiced, overworked, or otherwise unhelpful. A 2020 study of SNAP recipients found one-quarter of benefits recipients with recertification appointments randomly scheduled later in the month, when they were left with less time to reschedule before the month’s end, dropped off the SNAP rolls after failing recertification due to a missed appointment. Recent research released by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s PolicyLab found that as of January 2021, states that require WIC recipients to travel to a benefits office in person to have their benefits renewed and “reloaded” on the electronic benefits transfer debit cards (EBT) used to make WIC purchases had a 14 percent lower rate of eligible households participating in WIC, compared to states which had instituted automatic, fully online benefits renewal processes.

These data findings are brought to life by the on-the-ground experiences of organizations working alongside clients, providing assistance navigating SNAP, WIC, and other public benefits programs. Just Harvest, an anti-hunger non-profit which provides assistance for clients struggling to navigate the paperwork processes demanded by SNAP and WIC, reported that prior to the institution of telephone interviews for SNAP applications in Pennsylvania, many applicants who were denied benefits were turned away because they were not able to make their in-person appointment.

One obvious flexibility to celebrate as a welcome pandemic hold-over is an end to mandatory in-person interviews and other appointments, typically required in SNAP, WIC, TANF, and other benefits programs. Throughout the pandemic, the USDA and HHS have issued waivers and guidance to state agencies allowing broad discretion to operate fully remotely with adjustments like video visits for WIC recertification and telephone appointments for SNAP approval.

Because mandatory in-person appointments put benefits out of reach for many who would otherwise be eligible and are in serious need of support, advancing this shift should be prioritized as a way to remove significant barriers to access. This EO clearly recognizes the need to eliminate unnecessary in-person appointments, with language calling on the secretary of HHS to look for opportunities to cut back on these touchpoints:

…to the maximum extent permitted by law, support streamlining State enrollment and renewal processes and removing barriers, including by eliminating face-to-face interview requirements and requiring pre populated electronic renewal forms, to ensure eligible individuals are automatically enrolled in and retain access to critical benefit programs…

This push should be expanded across the safety net. At the same time, ending mandatory in-person appointments for safety net benefits must not come at the expense of populations who rely on the availability of in-person services to meet their needs, like clients who primarily speak a language other than English, or clients without reliable access to the necessary tech or comfort with using that tech. Ultimately, this may also involve exploring ways to address these particular needs through investing in better remote accommodation services, like improved systems for telephone and video translators.

Recommendation 3: Expand Online Purchasing Options

As many parents struggle to find necessary products on store shelves amidst recent supply shortages, online shopping may also grant them access to other alternative grocery retailers.

Originally launched in January 2017 and beginning with seven states, the USDA’S SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot has now spread to forty-eight states across the country. As some families learned through the challenges of the pandemic, online grocery shopping can provide a convenient option to save time and stay healthy, especially for busy parents juggling multiple jobs and care obligations. While it’s true that among the general population, online grocery shopping and delivery services are associated with younger, higher-income households, among low-income households, online shopping is thought to save time and offer support to those who lack access to transportation or live with disabilities. As many parents struggle to find necessary products on store shelves amidst recent supply shortages, online shopping may also grant them access to other alternative grocery retailers.

For families living in food deserts, where fresh produce and other healthier options can be difficult to find on local store shelves, online purchasing opens up new options to find a wider variety of the nutrition they need. A study of eight states participating in the SNAP online purchasing pilot found online grocery shopping systems already covered 90 percent of food deserts in those states. Expanding online purchasing allows families to decide how and where to shop to best meet their needs.

Among low-income households, online shopping is thought to save time and offer support to those who lack access to transportation or live with disabilities. As many parents struggle to find necessary products on store shelves amidst recent supply shortages, online shopping may also grant them access to other alternative grocery retailers.

SNAP clients have clearly benefited from having the option to purchase groceries online, and it’s time this option be extended to clients of WIC as well. Mothers and parents of infants or young children may especially benefit from this flexibility, given that early childhood years are when families have been found to be most exposed to food insecurity—and in recent news—supply shortages for essentials like baby formula.

While this EO directs the secretary of agriculture to “test the use of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits for online purchasing,” it’s important that this policy be pursued with the benefit of the lessons learned from what we already know about the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot. Research in 2019 found that among participating states, online retailers enrolled in the pilot were available in 94 percent of Census tracts considered urban food deserts, compared to only 31 percent of Census tracts considered rural food deserts. In addition, while there are more than 20,000 independent grocers and 8,600 farmers’ markets in the United States, only twelve of these participated in the pilot as of May 2021. These findings show that any plan to implement further online purchasing must be designed to incorporate an understanding of the food access challenges facing clients on the local level, and must take intentional steps to include independent grocers who may already serve hard-to-reach populations.

Recommendation 4: Expand Data Sharing and SNAP Combined Applications

As may be expected, clients receiving benefits from one program like Social Security Supplemental Income SSI, are often eligible for benefits from another like SNAP. Though they’ve already supplied plenty of their personal information to their state and federal government, many of these clients may have no idea they could be receiving additional help by simply sharing this same information on a different set of paperwork.

Matching the data collected by different programs on the same client can improve participation rates significantly by doing away with duplicative paperwork and accelerating enrollment, sometimes through automation. For example, an evaluation of South Carolina’s SNAP/SSI combined application pilot (CAP) found SNAP participation among SSI recipients increased by 12 percent from 1994 to 1998, even as the national rate fell 4 percent amidst the 1996 welfare reform movement. Combined application pilots (CAPs) like these follow a standard model and allow SSA offices to download an SSI recipients’ data directly to the state SNAP agency based on the client’s consent and the eligibility criteria for the pilot (as this varies by state). No additional legwork is needed from clients.

Recognizing this potential to reduce administrative burdens through data sharing, the EO tasks electronic governance and information security administrators within the executive branch with improving “…the efficiency and effectiveness of data sharing and support processes among agencies and with State and local governments,” and streamlining “the process for agencies to provide services to State and local governments, consistent with applicable law.”

While many opportunities for improving access to public benefits through improved data matching between programs may exist, they often operate through complex processes, and may be difficult to implement for the staff tasked with following through on these policies. The success of CAP demonstrations like South Carolina’s should be built upon in line with the EO’s directives by improving staff training at SSA and USDA offices, to ensure staff prioritize identifying opportunities to connect clients with other benefits and are kept informed on best practices to leverage data that may be available across or outside of government agencies.

Because many states restrict their CAP demonstrations to only SSI recipients living by themselves, these simplified processes are unavailable to many disabled Americans facing food insecurity with a family to feed. The commissioner of the SSA should draw on the language of this EO, such as the excerpt below, to release guidance directing states to explore ways to expand CAP demonstrations and limit eligibility criteria, so that more families can enjoy fewer obstacles navigating between their SNAP and SSI benefits:

To the maximum extent permitted by law, support applicants and beneficiaries to identify other benefits for which they may be eligible and integrate Social Security Administration data and processes with those of other Federal and State entities whenever possible.

Recommendation 5: Expand Direct Certification and Fight Summer Hunger

With the third school year disrupted by the pandemic having drawn to a close, too many children are at risk of losing access to nutritional meals now that their cafeteria has shuttered. Each summer, families with children experience elevated rates of hunger as grocery bills rise with extra mouths to feed at home while, at the same time, summer meal aid goes unused due to poor participation rates even among eligible families and the high-need communities targeted by USDA outreach plans.

According to data presented by the Children’s Defense Fund, the Summer Food Service Program and the Summer Option through the National School Lunch Program, the main federal anti-hunger programs designed to stave-off food insecurity over kids’ summer vacation, routinely fail to reach more than a fraction of children who typically receive free or reduced-price lunch during the school year. In summer 2019, these programs provided meals to less than four in five children who received free or reduced-price lunch during the previous school year, leaving more than 18 million children behind.

Though President Biden signed the Keep Kids Fed Act at the end of June, giving federal approval to extend increased SNAP benefits through emergency allotments, many families will still face cuts to their benefits since many states have already ended their own public health emergency declarations, excluding them from this aid. Now is the time to prioritize supporting families through a summer which is likely to stretch their budgets even thinner. Closing this gap and increasing the accessibility of these summer meals can begin with leveraging this EO’s language focused on increased data sharing across government and this directive to the secretary of agriculture taken from the EO:

…identify opportunities to reduce individuals’ and families’ burdens by simplifying enrollment and recertification for nutrition assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the WIC, including expanding the use of direct certification…

Similar to opportunities to increase program participation in SNAP through data-matching, improved data sharing between schools and summer meal programs could greatly improve these programs’ reach without additional burden on clients. Drawing on the databases and processes already engaged in “direct certification” for SNAP recipients, a kind of data matching which ensures children receiving SNAP are also automatically enrolled in free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the secretary of agriculture should direct state and local partners to prioritize exploring data-sharing strategies for improving summer meal outreach.

Conclusion

As families and communities across the country continue to report anxiety over making ends meet, administrative burdens keep too many locked out of the aid they’re already owed. Too often, even those who satisfy the eligibility requirements for life-sustaining welfare benefits are left empty-handed because the government systems underpinning our safety net have failed to prioritize accessibility. The Biden administration can make a meaningful step to right this course with bold implementation of this EO. Looking for creative opportunities to end duplication through data sharing between government agencies wherever possible, and supporting successful innovations and expanded flexibility, can provide a jumpstart to the grand scale of red-tape elimination needed to streamline the administration of the safety net.