OBBBA’s Impact on Young Adults and 5 Strategies to Support Them

Develop robust and widely available supportive navigation options within locations young adults already frequent since these institutions likely have their trust and young adults may not know where to seek out this information otherwise.

Increase connections with peer young adults or relatable adults with similar backgrounds and experiences to support improved benefits awareness and take-up such as student navigators, college resource centers, or navigation support at community-based organizations.

Support young adults in getting vital documentation. Many young adults are missing documents that will now be required of them, including former foster youth and young adults without strong family ties. Any steps to reduce the cost or make it easier for them to obtain those documents will help.

Help young adults demonstrate exemption from or compliance with new work requirements by supporting their ability to find and document work, a volunteer position, or other qualifying activities to meet the required hours. Help them demonstrate if they are eligible for an exemption. Provide clear templates for how to document compliance and exemption so organizations and applicants who need to complete a manual verification can do so easily.

Ensure student resource centers are ready to help navigate students to needed resources and ideally to assist them with their applications. In the process, empower students to learn how to complete the applications correctly for future renewals. These offices and on-campus resources that have experience helping students navigate applications and work requirements can also coordinate with public benefit offices and other young adult-serving organizations that do not operate in a university setting to streamline the application process and share lessons and best practices.

Consider engaging student navigators. Young adults are more likely to approach their peers with questions and with requests for help, especially if they do not feel as though they have caring adults in their life that they can turn to.

Make administrative decisions during implementation that minimize burden and provide an array of options to meet requirements. For instance, states can choose shorter look-back periods for Medicaid work requirements and less frequent compliance verification, which could prevent young adults with volatile employment arrangements from churning off programs. States can identify an array of work activities that include training, work experiences, and volunteering that are responsive to the needs of young adults and help them meaningfully connect with workforce opportunities.

Broaden definitions and allow self-attestation and self-reporting where possible. Adopt policies that are less likely to add additional administrative burden for current enrollees, applicants, and case workers. For instance, for the ABAWD and student eligibility requirements, states can elect to provide multiple options for documenting “unfitness” that are feasible for young people, including documentation from service providers and participation in disability services. Adopt a more expansive definition of “medical frailty” that captures a wider population that may struggle to maintain consistent employment due to health challenges, including those with disabilities or intermittent health issues. Explore options for self-reporting to help people demonstrate eligibility or exemption.

Allow short-term hardship exemptions and when possible, request federal exemptions that apply—such as those related to high local unemployment rates, or emergencies and disasters—to reduce the burden on applicants and benefits administrators. Apply them automatically rather than requiring individuals to take action themselves.

Align definitions across Medicaid and SNAP (or other programs) to help people qualify across programs, whenever possible.

Coordinate cross-agency and cross-program data sharing. When processing Medicaid applications, OBBBA requires that states try to use the data already available to them to verify individuals are in compliance or exempt in an automated manner at renewals before asking for additional information. To do this well, they will need data sources that demonstrate compliance or exemptions, such as information about disability status, medical information to determine if individuals are considered medically frail, veteran and former foster youth status, work requirement documentation, etc. States can also use other program data, like income verification from SNAP for Medicaid or checking for exemptions.

Utilize external data sources to automatically verify compliance and exemptions, including across programs. Explore consent-based verification systems where possible, and start by integrating the data sources that will be most likely to help verify the most people, reducing the burden of additional paperwork submission and processing. This can be particularly helpful for foster youth, gig workers, or those with multiple jobs.

Automate data sharing and verification for students, and where possible, use student data to notify students of their potential eligibility. Share enrollment information and class hour data about students directly with states and counties (for county-administered states) to reduce the paperwork students have to obtain and share to demonstrate their status.

Examine benefit agencies’ processes and systems. While the budget pressures make IT system upgrades challenging, state and local governments may also find that improving their application forms or streamlining back-end processing and aligning across programs can keep people enrolled despite the pressures from OBBBA and support long-run cost savings.

Leverage AI-enabled tools and other technology to automate application processes and provide applicants with timely feedback. Such tools could include 24/7 chat bots to answer questions, self-service portals that allow mobile upload options and review documentation for completeness, and interactive forms that can flag potential issues before submission. This may also reduce the administrative burden on staff by helping address some of the most common questions or issues with applications, reserving caseworker time for more complex cases.

Explore streamlining or creating common applications across several benefits programs, ensuring that people are not being asked to answer duplicate questions.

Automatically pre-populate required documentation for young adults to submit when automated data submission is unavailable. Test out submission workflows with real users to make sure instructions are clear, including for more complex scenarios, like part-time students or workers with multiple jobs or seasonal hours.