Helping Young People Secure Access to Public Benefits

A new report iden­ti­fies proven and promis­ing approach­es for expand­ing access that teens and young adults have to the pub­lic safe­ty net pro­grams for which they qual­i­fy. Fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, the Urban Insti­tute report, Strate­gies to Sup­port Young People’s Access to Pub­lic Ben­e­fits, ana­lyzes exist­ing evi­dence for what works to increase eli­gi­ble young people’s access to pub­lic ben­e­fits and pro­vides pol­i­cy, pro­gram and research rec­om­men­da­tions for advanc­ing this goal.

Pub­lic ben­e­fit pro­grams — for exam­ple, Med­ic­aid, the Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram and Child Care and Devel­op­ment Fund sub­si­dies — are designed to help indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies with low incomes meet their basic needs, includ­ing health insur­ance, food and child care.

Dis­cov­er how New Mex­i­co expand­ed youth fund­ing through Med­ic­aid reimbursements

“In addi­tion to inform­ing pol­i­cy, prac­tice and research, these find­ings can inform the work of oth­er fun­ders work­ing to ensure young peo­ple and their fam­i­lies can meet their basic needs and pur­sue their edu­ca­tion, employ­ment and finan­cial goals,” said Jef­frey Poiri­er, a direc­tor in Casey’s Cen­ter for Eco­nom­ic Opportunity.

Over­com­ing Bar­ri­ers to Meet­ing Basic Needs

Young peo­ple, young par­ents and youth who have expe­ri­enced child wel­fare and oth­er pub­lic sys­tems, face chal­lenges access­ing pub­lic ben­e­fits even when they are eli­gi­ble. These chal­lenges include young people’s lack of aware­ness of their eli­gi­bil­i­ty for these ben­e­fits, the dif­fi­cul­ty of nav­i­gat­ing frag­ment­ed pub­lic ben­e­fit sys­tems and com­plex, restric­tive eli­gi­bil­i­ty rules.

Urban Insti­tute researchers ana­lyzed a wide range of ben­e­fit-access stud­ies, includ­ing arti­cles from peer-reviewed jour­nals, briefs from aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions and reports from fed­er­al agen­cies. For efforts aimed at increas­ing youth access to pub­lic ben­e­fits, the study found only lim­it­ed causal evi­dence — mean­ing that the evi­dence demon­strates a clear rela­tion­ship between an activ­i­ty and improved outcomes.

How­ev­er, the researchers iden­ti­fied many promis­ing approach­es to increas­ing ben­e­fit access. The report orga­nizes these inter­ven­tions into five categories: 

• tar­get­ed youth out­reach to pro­mote aware­ness of fed­er­al benefits;
• ben­e­fit nav­i­ga­tion to help young peo­ple com­plete long and often con­fus­ing applications;
• cross-orga­ni­za­tion­al part­ner­ships to help coor­di­nate ben­e­fits across mul­ti­ple agencies;
• sim­pli­fy­ing or expand­ing eli­gi­bil­i­ty for ben­e­fits to increase young people’s access to them; and
  
• enhanc­ing admin­is­tra­tive effi­cien­cy and effec­tive­ness to ease and speed up the appli­ca­tion process for young clients.
  

Rec­om­men­da­tions for Pol­i­cy­mak­ers, Prac­ti­tion­ers and Researchers

Strate­gies to Sup­port Young People’s Access to Pub­lic Ben­e­fits sug­gests next steps for pol­i­cy, prac­tice and research. 

• Pol­i­cy­mak­ers: Pri­or­i­tize fund­ing for com­pre­hen­sive approach­es that cut across mul­ti­ple cat­e­gories high­light­ed in the report — for exam­ple, efforts that com­bine ben­e­fit nav­i­ga­tion with cross-orga­ni­za­tion­al part­ner­ships and eli­gi­bil­i­ty expansion.

• Prac­ti­tion­ers (pub­lic ben­e­fit agen­cies, youth-serv­ing orga­ni­za­tions and oth­ers sup­port­ing ben­e­fits access for young peo­ple): Enact youth-cen­tered prac­tices — like plain-lan­guage com­mu­ni­ca­tion through text mes­sag­ing, apps and oth­er dig­i­tal plat­forms — that ease bur­dens on young peo­ple when they apply for ben­e­fits and enable staff to more effec­tive­ly man­age programs.
• Researchers: Eval­u­ate promis­ing and emerg­ing approach­es among the five cat­e­gories iden­ti­fied in the report. Includ­ing youth who have expe­ri­ence access­ing ben­e­fits can strength­en eval­u­a­tion design and findings.

Down­load the report