Increasing Stimulus Payment Take-up in California: Results from a Phone and Email Campaign
Abstract
In Fall 2021, The People Lab (TPL) and the California Policy Lab (CPL) partnered with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and Code for America (CfA) to conduct and evaluate a state-wide outreach effort aimed at delivering stimulus payments to low-income Californians. The outreach campaign reached nearly 430,000 low-income households in California. These households were enrolled in either the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or CalFresh) or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, or CalWORKs), and were identified as having at least one likely “non-filer” — someone who had not filed or been claimed on a state tax return in 2018 and/or 2019 and who was therefore likely to miss out on tax-based benefits payments. In a randomized evaluation, we tested the impact of informational outreach delivered via recorded voice message or email on the initiation and submission of returns among likely non-filers through the simplified filing tool created by CfA: GetCTC.org. We also evaluated the effect of emphasizing the availability of live assistance, as well as the impact of different message language.
This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278