How Code for America Tried to Improve SNAP Benefit Renewal Rates - Bloomberg

Code for America is working to make it easier for welfare recipients to access benefits. The problem: Governments design it to be hard. Bryce Covert Team members at Code for America. Photographers: Evan Cobb, Kelsey McClellan, and Max Hemphill for Bloomberg Businessweek Subscriber Benefit Subscribe Genevieve Miller is a perfect Zoom emcee. The program manager at Code for America begins each meeting with a perky welcome and an icebreaker. To kick off a collaboration between her nonprofit and the Connecticut Department of Social Services last July, she threw out some trivia: Connecticut’s state animal is the sperm whale. Its nickname is the Nutmeg State. A New Haven restaurant is credited with inventing the hamburger. The Pez factory is located in Orange. That last factoid prompted CfA staffers to add a visit to an upcoming research trip where they’d be talking to food stamp recipients and DSS employees throughout the state. The partnership was to allow the state to text residents enroll

Code for America is working to make it easier for welfare recipients to access benefits. The problem: Governments design it to be hard. Bryce Covert Team members at Code for America. Photographers: Evan Cobb, Kelsey McClellan, and Max Hemphill for Bloomberg Businessweek Subscriber Benefit Subscribe Genevieve Miller is a perfect Zoom emcee. The program manager at Code for America begins each meeting with a perky welcome and an icebreaker. To kick off a collaboration between her nonprofit and the Connecticut Department of Social Services last July, she threw out some trivia: Connecticut’s state