The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently assessed how federal programs serving low-income households use data to verify applicants’ income and assets. GAO’s report examines data use across six programs: Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Making use of available electronic data sources to verify eligibility has many benefits, including decreased documentation requirements for applicants and more efficient program administration. The research finds that both HUD and HHS should provide more information about data sources to state and local administrators to improve eligibility verification.
GAO reviewed federal data use requirements, state plans, and relevant research studies. Researchers also conducted interviews with federal officials, researchers, and association officials working with state or local program administrators.
Three of the selected programs (HCV, SNAP, and Medicaid) have federal requirements for using electronic data sources to verify eligibility, while LIHEAP, EITC, and SSI do not. Nevertheless, each program uses some electronic data to verify income eligibility and assets. The research identified a total of 34 potential data sources used to verify eligibility, including 13 federal, 14 state, and 7 commercial datasets. These include sources such as federal tax data, the National Directory of New Hires, state quarterly wage databases, and state unemployment data.
GAO finds that HUD and HHS have the most potential to improve their electronic data use processes for income verification. Within HUD’s HCV program, state and local public housing agencies (PHA) must use several federally required data sources to verify an applicant’s eligibility. PHAs also have the flexibility to use other electronic data sources that have the potential to speed up verification processes and the distribution of assistance to tenants. Despite the benefits of using additional sources, HUD has done very little to understand what additional data sources PHAs use. PHAs are not required to report which income verification sources they use to screen HCV applicants. GAO suggests that HUD survey PHAs to assess what sources are being used. HUD should share their finding through existing networks and forums.
The report can be found at: https://bit.ly/2OaP8Cv