Aspen Institute Brief on Learning from Young Adults to Improve Public Benefits

This Aspen Institute brief uses five detailed real-life profiles drawn from interviews with young adults to map the specific barriers they face navigating public benefits, from awareness through enrollment to maintaining eligibility. It shows how issues like housing instability, fluctuating gig income, stigma, and benefits cliffs create compounding obstacles that the system was never designed to address. For funders and advocates, it offers both a clear diagnosis of where the system fails young people and concrete, actionable strategies for fixing it.