One thing I hope for with new leadership overseeing safety net programs like SNAP at the federal level is that focus is given not just to expanding eligibility (a common advocacy target) but also on reducing the clear empirical barriers that ALREADY eligible folks applying face.

USDA FNS actually has a ton of levers with the states and counties who administer SNAP, particularly in *relieving* requirements and focusing oversight on access, e.g.

- Management oversight reviews focused on things like being able to get a telephone interview...

- Good-faith partnerships with states on measuring dropoff between (applying) and (approval) for denials that may be due to friction in the process

"Procedural denials" as they're called are often (when you dig in) not clients abandoning, but operational gaps.

- Investment and policy guidance to support states in doing *continuous* and *iterative* improvements in technology, rather than a funding process that is sufficiently burdensome to incentivize Big Planning up front, without a lot of space to gut check assumptions early (+funded)

- An anti-fraud / "program integrity" oversight perspective that focuses on preventing malicious and high-scale fraud (like retailers) and gives states the space to make cost-effectiveness calls on when anti-fraud measures create too much administrative burden to be worth it

Programs like SNAP are way more decentralized than people like to think, but a federal oversight approach / leadership with the a value of "if you need SNAP, as little as legally possible should stand between you and your EBT card" would really go a long way.

(And in fact the administrative flexibility provided during COVID is pretty good proof that you *can* simplify things — more of that is possible, even beyond pandemic times.)

Continuous improvement reducing a strong measure of procedural denials (someone otherwise eligible applying but not getting the benefits.) And strong support for state improvement (much was/is happening @ FNS!) That would do a lot, I think.

End coffee thoughts.

Ugh this also reminds me that at some point I have to write up "How to measure the SNAP funnel and identify access barriers (based on experience with 500k applications)"

thoughts hopefully retrievable from the depths of burnout. Not sure white papers land when by Random Dude.