|
OES and Treasury partnered on a descriptive study of equity
Overseen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program provided direct cash assistance to renters and landlords to assist with rent, utilities, and other housing-related expenses. It was the first-ever nationwide program aimed at preventing eviction through direct assistance to renters. Earlier this year, OES partnered with Treasury to understand how the demographic profile of renters who were eligible for ERA compared to the demographic profile of renters who received ERA.
Existing research illustrates that Black and women renters were the most likely to receive eviction notices prior to the pandemic. In ERA, an unprecedented rental assistance program that Treasury and hundreds of grantees stood up and implemented in a number of months, OES found that Black and women renters were most likely to receive funds, across all regions of the U.S.
 Image: OES took a multiple datasets approach to estimate differences in the race, ethnicity, gender, and income of renters who received and renters who were eligible for ERA.
|
|
OES worked with the Social Security Administration to support low-income older adults
In 2018, OES worked with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to help low-income older adults understand how they could benefit from Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a program that helps nearly eight million aged, blind, and disabled people who have little or no income and assets meet their basic needs. This evaluation showed that letters informing potentially eligible older adults about the benefit increased SSI awards by 340 percent.
In January 2021, Executive Order 13985 on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government prioritized equitable delivery of government benefits, such as SSI, to all eligible individuals. To advance access to SSI based on OES’ 2018 evaluation, SSA sent letters to about 200,000 Social Security beneficiaries who might be eligible for SSI in late 2020 and early 2021. SSA then expanded its outreach between June 2021 and December 2022 to 1.2 million possible beneficiaries, sending letters about the SSI benefit.
For more information about SSA and OES’s efforts to improve the outreach about the SSI program, read our newest blog post.
|
|
|
Learn about the Fellowship Program from past Fellows!
Do you have ideas on how to help the Federal Government run better? Do you like working with innovative thinkers to make a positive impact? If so, apply to be a Fellow today! Our team forms innovative partnerships with agency partners to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in the United States and abroad, such as opioid prescribing, access to healthcare for Veterans, reducing energy use and costs, and improving government efficiency.
Want to know more? Check out this discussion with a few OES alums. They talk about why they joined the OES team, favorite parts of working with the team, advice to prospective fellows, and where they are now.
All Fellowship positions will be remote within the United States. If you have any questions, email the OES team at oes@gsa.gov. The deadline to apply is Wednesday, January 11, 2023.
Image: Since 2015, OES has recruited over 150 interdisciplinary experts into Federal Government
|
|
|
|
