When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access

There is growing evidence that administrative burdens in social programs matter to access, and that we should do something about it. I’ve worked on such efforts in the federal government, helping to design revised guidance to the Paperwork Reduction Act to help to identify and reduce burdens. I’ve l...

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Main Author: Kyle, Jordan
Format: Blog Post
Language:Inglés
Published: Don Moynihan 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/140145
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description There is growing evidence that administrative burdens in social programs matter to access, and that we should do something about it. I’ve worked on such efforts in the federal government, helping to design revised guidance to the Paperwork Reduction Act to help to identify and reduce burdens. I’ve left the Office of Management and Budget now, but my time there and my academic research has given me new insights on the sources of administrative burdens, and some suggestions for how to reduce them. Administrative burdens in social safety net programs are often attributed to two main causes. First, they can arise from “benign neglect”: unwitting small decisions made early in program design that can have outsized effects on the populations the programs are intended to serve. In these cases, burdens flow from bureaucratic processes that are not themselves intended to harm the public—indeed, they are often designed to improve public administration—but end up resulting in onerous processes for individuals. Second, burdens arise from “hidden politics,” when paperwork and wait times are used to purposively limit access to public services. But there is an important third source of administrative burdens that’s not quite benign neglect or hidden politics: bureaucratic and legislative efforts to expand existing programs to cover new problems and new populations. Such efforts are benign but intentional, with the goal of broadening access rather than reducing it. We might think of this kind of institutional change as “layering;” essentially, adding new rules on top of existing ones.
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spelling CGSpace1401452024-10-25T07:57:28Z When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access Kyle, Jordan administration programmes policies layering social protection reforms population social safety nets governance There is growing evidence that administrative burdens in social programs matter to access, and that we should do something about it. I’ve worked on such efforts in the federal government, helping to design revised guidance to the Paperwork Reduction Act to help to identify and reduce burdens. I’ve left the Office of Management and Budget now, but my time there and my academic research has given me new insights on the sources of administrative burdens, and some suggestions for how to reduce them. Administrative burdens in social safety net programs are often attributed to two main causes. First, they can arise from “benign neglect”: unwitting small decisions made early in program design that can have outsized effects on the populations the programs are intended to serve. In these cases, burdens flow from bureaucratic processes that are not themselves intended to harm the public—indeed, they are often designed to improve public administration—but end up resulting in onerous processes for individuals. Second, burdens arise from “hidden politics,” when paperwork and wait times are used to purposively limit access to public services. But there is an important third source of administrative burdens that’s not quite benign neglect or hidden politics: bureaucratic and legislative efforts to expand existing programs to cover new problems and new populations. Such efforts are benign but intentional, with the goal of broadening access rather than reducing it. We might think of this kind of institutional change as “layering;” essentially, adding new rules on top of existing ones. 2023-01-20 2024-03-14T12:08:59Z 2024-03-14T12:08:59Z Blog Post https://hdl.handle.net/10568/140145 en Open Access Don Moynihan Kyle, Jordan. 2023. When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access. Can We Still Govern? First available on January 20, 2023. Don Moynihan. https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/when-policymakers-add-administrative
spellingShingle administration
programmes
policies
layering
social protection
reforms
population
social safety nets
governance
Kyle, Jordan
When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access
title When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access
title_full When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access
title_fullStr When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access
title_full_unstemmed When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access
title_short When policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access
title_sort when policymakers add administrative burdens while expanding access
topic administration
programmes
policies
layering
social protection
reforms
population
social safety nets
governance
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/140145
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