Code for America

Safety netwe're modernizing the digital delivery of benefits for equitable outcomes with the goal of deliverying $30 billion in benefits to 13 million people across 15 states. In 2023 we:-continued our first cohort of the safety net innovation lab and secured commitments for our second cohort, representing 10 out of 15 total state partnerships. We completed discovery and identified effective delivery interventions for the first cohort and kicked off discovery for the second cohort.-launched resources to advance government adoption of safety net best practices, including priorities for farm bill policy that impact nutrition assistance programs and the benefits enrollment field guide, a public asset that offers a comprehensive look at the online enrollment experience for medicaid (magi), snap, tanf, wic, and childcare assistance (ccap) in each state.-supported federal and state government as it launched the first new permanent social safety net program in nearly 50 years: summer ebt, a monthly grocery benefit provided to families during the summer months when children are not receiving meals at school. We created the summer ebt playbook, which is a comprehensive, free resource designed to help state agencies plan for and implement a human-centered summer ebt program.

Clear my record70-100 million people in America have a criminal record holding them back from opportunity. We work to fundamentally transform the process of clearing records to eliminate barriers for people trying to move forward with their livves. In 2023, we:-supported a new record clearance law in Minnesota along with ongoing legislative campaigns in eight states. We're integrating technical best practices for implementation into legislation and designing policy solutions that take into account government's existing technology and data availability, so that government agencies can successfully implement policy once passed. Once implemented, 296,000 records will be cleared, removing the burden from justice-impacted individuals.-continued to partner with the state of Utah to clear convictions of eligible people. Utah has adopted the Code and technical process we built to identify and continually clear records as they meet eligibility requirements. Code for America is supporting the state in adopting the software required to successfully automate its expungement process for qualifying misdemeanor records. Utah's automatic process will be fully operational in 2024 - clearing records automatically as soon as they become eligible.-developed a tool to analyze criminal justice data in all 50 states efficiently and effectively. The tool can aggregate and format state criminal justice data, transform it to diagnose and problem-solve implementation challenges, and evaluate the prospective impacts of new policies to increase equity and reduce barriers in implementing automatic record clearance. We plan to share these outputs and results with our policy partners in state government and advocacy organizations.-made it easier for the government to implement automation. Using processes we helped co-create, Michigan, Connecticut, and California launched automatic record clearance implementation. These states were able to adapt their systems and operations to implement successfully. To date, the processes we helped co-create in these states have allowed millions of people to have their eligible records cleared.

Eitc (earned income tax credit)our tax benefits portfolio seeks to fundamentally change how americans with low or no incomes access the tax credits and flexible cash owed to them. Our goal is to close the $40 billion tax benefits gap and simplify the tax filing process. In 2023, we:-simplified the tax filing process and helped people achieve the financial stability they deserve by continuing to provide getyourrefund. Getyourrefund is a free, trustworthy tax filing service developed in partnership with the irs and vita volunteer tax preparation partners as a digital platform for vita-assisted filing.-developed an integrated state filing strategy to complement federal direct file, in response to the irs's direct file announcement. We're partnering with state tax departments to implement tax filing for direct file users in Arizona and new york, two of the three states that are providing integrated state tax filing during the direct file pilot year.-advocated for policies that simplify the tax process. Shaped the national conversation about simplifying tax filing, publishing hundreds of pages of research and recommendations based on our experience running getctc, the only simplified filing tool for the entire federal government from 2020-2022 when simplified filing was allowed for the child tax credit and other tax benefits. These included our marquee publication outlining what an irs direct filing tool could look like; our detailed data on the importance of waiving income reporting requirements for low-income households; thorough analysis of outreach avenues for tax benefits.-celebrated the irs's historic step announced in may to build a free, public, easy-to-use direct file tool that would let people file their taxes directly with the government. We co-launched the coalition for free and fair filing with other leading national organizations, where we have helped organize the support of 203 organizations around the country, 99 members of congress, 134 leading tax researchers and experts, and leaders in the vita field; and published critical explainers on direct file progress.

Advancing economic mobility with local initiativewe're helping local governments and allied organizations achieve better outcomes for residents and improve local capability to use equitable digital services. In 2023, we:-partnered with shelby county and the city of memphis to demonstrate how to strengthen communities by empowering those who have been most disconnected. We provided technical assistance for a city of memphis program intended to remove barriers and connect the gap between preparation and opportunity for young people disconnected from employment and education opportunities. This led to shelby county funding a youth participatory action research pilot. It will train and compensate young adults to lead community research and co-design recommendations for supporting opportunity youth in the region.-enriched the data in san antonio needed to evaluate and improve childcare services for latina women living in poverty. The city's ready to work program will use the findings to advocate for more funding to support childcare for residents with low incomes going through their workforce development program.-supported the city of albuquerque's efforts to expand homeownership for black residents between the ages of 18 and 45 by evaluating the pain points in the home-buying journey. We conducted interviews with black residents to understand perceptions and challenges around the home-buying journey and provided recommendations to the city to increase black homeownership.