Transitional Benefits in a 2Gen Pilot Program: Implementation and Early Findings from Onondaga County, NY

• In Event: Piloting Transitional Benefits to Mitigate the Benefits Cliff: Implementation Lessons and Early Findings

Abstract

In 2022, Onondaga County’s Department of Social Services implemented a novel and innovative multigenerational approach to help members of the community that are caught in an intergenerational poverty cycle. The county has been implementing this pilot initiative, titled 2Gen Onondaga, to provide wraparound and intensive case management to young mothers that are on temporary assistance and who as children also received program benefits. The initiative works closely with mothers on goals within the domains of health and well-being, early education and children’s development, postsecondary education and employment pathways, economic assets, and social capital. They also provide transitional benefits as a family’s income rises over TANF and SNAP eligibility limits, triggering a partial or complete loss of benefits.

The county is gradually rolling out the program to randomly selected eligible participants. The randomized staggered rollout allows us to compare the change in outcomes of mothers receiving the 2Gen program to the change in outcomes of those who have not yet started the program using a difference-in-differences design. Working closely with the 2Gen staff also allows us to better understand implementation difficulties with a program of this scope, particularly in providing transitional benefits.

In the 2Gen program, participants are provided with their last full TANF amount and their last full SNAP amount for 12 months once they gain employment and lose eligibility and access to those programs. Assessing the implementation of transitional benefits, 2Gen staff have confronted several difficulties worth noting. The staff is always working to ensure that they are not overinflating incomes such that other programs are impacted by the transitional benefits assistance. They must work closely with the state to manage both SNAP and TANF to ensure that the cliff money does not negate existing benefits. This is further complicated by an ever-changing policy landscape. In 2023, NY enacted legislation establishing Earned Income Disregard to support public assistance recipients by allowing them to earn more income while retaining access to benefits and other supportive services. This has affected implementation and rollout of the transitional benefits program under 2Gen. Staff have also discussed difficulties ensuring that the transitional benefits are not seen by participants as a substitute for TANF.

While the pilot is ongoing, preliminary results analyzing administrative data and self-assessment survey data are suggestive of the potential impacts of 2Gen. As of February 2025, there have been 117 families enrolled in the 2Gen Onondaga program. Initial findings suggest that families in the 2Gen program see an increase in their total monthly income relative to the control group, a decrease in their SNAP benefits, less credit card debt, and higher student loan debt. 2Gen families also reported higher self-assessed scores for employment, childcare, mobility, parenting, mental health, substance abuse, health care, social relations, and childcare attendance than the control group.

Author

• Hannah Patnaik, Syracuse University
  Presenting Author