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Policy Design & Analysis

Analysis & Interactive Dashboard for Benefits Cliffs Working Group

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Partner

Connecticut 2Gen Initiative Benefits Cliffs Working Group

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Goals

Analyze income thresholds and benefits to inform Working Group’s policy solutions aimed at mitigating impacts of benefits cliffs

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Results

Developed white paper and interactive dashboard used by Working Group to develop state-level policy recommendations

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Rosa Rada

Connecticut 2Gen Coordinator

"The School and State Finance Project provided critical research to Connecticut's 2Gen Benefits Cliffs Working Group. Their research laid the foundation for our understanding of the state's complex public benefits system and the challenges that Connecticut families face in advancing up the economic ladder. This understanding facilitated a cross-sector, bipartisan policy recommendation process, resulting in legislation and contributions to the Governor's Workforce Council."

Benefits cliffs is a term used to describe what occurs when public benefit programs quickly phase down — or out entirely — as a result of an increase in household earnings, but the earning increase is not enough to replace the value of these benefits. A small increase in household earnings can often make a family suddenly ineligible for a benefit, causing the family to substantially worse off, in terms of their full household financial picture, than prior to the increase in earnings.

The Benefits Cliffs Working Group for the State of Connecticut’s Two-Generational (2Gen) Initiative was formed to collect data to understand the interplay of different benefits and how they affect parents’ ability to move into the workforce, as well as develop short and long-term bipartisan policy solutions to the cliff effect in context of the state’s increasing minimum wage.

In October 2019, the Working Group engaged the School and State Finance Project to research and analyze income thresholds and benefits, which would assist the Working Group in its efforts to develop policy solutions for mitigating benefits cliffs.

An open laptop with the benefits cliffs interactive dashboard on the screen. A green coffee cup is to the right of the laptop and a pencil cup with a variety of pencils is to the left.

As part of this engagement, we created a white paper summarizing the income thresholds and provided benefits for each program determined by the Working Group. Additionally, our team created an interactive dashboard allowing non-technical stakeholders to view program eligibility for a user-defined family (including income, family size, etc.) and increase their knowledge of benefit programs and benefits cliffs.

The white paper produced by our team was ultimately used by the Working Group to develop recommendations and policy solutions for how the Connecticut legislative and executive branches can mitigate the impact of benefits cliffs, and the interactive program eligibility visualization was used to help educate policymakers about how eligibility requirements differ between programs and how benefits cliffs can impact families across the state.

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