Administrative Burden

Administrative Burden

Policymaking by Other Means

Pamela Herd, Donald P. Moynihan

The use of information technology in bureaucracies may restrict the capacity of administrators to use their discretion to minimize the effects of burdens. For example, the automation of Food Stamp benefits in Indiana sidelined caseworkers, replacing them with unwieldy technological processes that many claimants struggled with, resulting in a decline in take-up of benefits, even as take-up was increasing in the rest of the country. 15
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