The Social Science Case for a Flexible Benefit Set

Abstract

The Flexible Benefit Set (FBS) is an integral part of Pathways to Prosperity and Wellbeing (P2PW), a human-centered design initiative to reform human services in Dakota County and Olmstead County. The FBS addresses the need to remodel public assistance delivery by streamlining funding through a single payment source and eliminating restrictions on how participants can spend public benefits. Our study examined the social science literature pertaining to five core principles of the FBS’s design: accessibility, centering equity, trusting families and flexibility, raising benefit cut-offs to the level of a living wage, and eliminating benefit cliffs.