Interventions to bolster benefits take-up: Assessing intensity, framing, and targeting of government outreach

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Linos, Elizabeth; Lasky-Fink, Jessica; Dorie, Vincent; Rothstein, Jesse
• 署名单位: Harvard University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-12420
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2504747122
• 发表日期: 2025-09-16
• 关键词: impacts

摘要

Behaviorally informed nudges are widely used in government outreach but are often seen as too modest to address poverty at scale. In four field experiments over 2 y (n = 542,804 low-income households), we test whether more proactive communication, varying message framing, and more precise targeting can boost take-up of tax-based benefits in California above and beyond traditional light-touch approaches. Our interventions focused on extremely vulnerable households, most with no prior-year earnings, who were at risk of missing out on two crucial benefits: the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit and pandemic-relief Economic Impact Payments. Light-touch outreach consistently increased take-up of these benefits by 0.14 to 2 percentage points-a 150% to over 500% relative increase-regardless of message, sample, timing, or modality. These light-touch approaches resulted in over $4 million disbursed, with a highly cost-effective return of $50 to over $8,000 per $1 spent. However, higher-touch proactive outreach, varying messaging, and more precise targeting yielded minimal additional benefits, with proactive outreach even showing negative returns. These findings demonstrate that light-touch outreach can effectively shift behavior among very vulnerable households in contexts with reduced compliance burdens, but also underscore an urgent need to rethink the role of higher-touch strategies in closing take-up gaps in social safety net programs.