Ind. FSSA welfare ‘hybrid’ poised to expand, By Eric Bradner, July 24, 2011, Evansville Courier and Press: “A year and a half ago, Indiana’s human services agency decided to scrap some parts of its ‘modernization’ effort and replace it with a new way of handling welfare benefits. The Family and Social Services Administration piloted its ‘hybrid’ system – one that combined the technological advances of the botched effort and the in-person touch that existed before 2008 – in 10 Southwestern Indiana counties. Eighteen months later, the state is expanding that hybrid way of determining whether Hoosiers qualify for welfare and delivering those benefits to 72 of Indiana’s 92 counties. A look at data on error rates, timeliness, case backlogs and more show that across the board, the hybrid system is outperforming its two predecessors – the paper-based system in place before 2008, and the computerized one in place after that…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty