One reason is administrative obstacles and friction that eligible individuals have to remove public services. A paper by flock and mionihan (2025) Economic approach journal Provides observation of literature.
Such burden are in the form of policy implementation experience, and the cost of learning (learn about the existence of public services and requirements), compliance cost (time and effort spent to deal with bureaucracy demands and the time and Efforts), and are generated through psychological, and psychological, and psychological, and psychological costs (emotional reaction to civil-state interactions). Such friction can limit access to public services to public services, which will benefit, and are entitled to achieve legally. With the lowest resources, and the greatest needs, can struggle more to overcome the burden; Friction that strengthens existing inequality. As a research approach, the administrative burden offers a spontaneous and accessible way to improve state’s capacity and public services distribution for policy actors and researchers.
Some more expansion on these costs:
- Learning cost Time and effort to know about the program or service, find out the situation of eligibility, nature of benefits, situations that should be satisfied, and how to achieve access.
- Compliance cost Provision of information and documentation to demonstrate standing; Financial costs to access services (eg fee, legal representation, travel cost); Avoid or respond to discretionary demands made by administrators; Time spent on these procedures.
- Psychological cost: The stigma generated by applying and participating in an unlopted program; Loss of autonomy that comes from infiltration from administrative supervision; Disappointment in dealing with learning and compliance costs, unjust or unnecessary processes; Stress that arises from uncertainty whether one can interact on the processes and compliance costs; Fear of forced face of state power.
How big are these effects? In practice, very big. Paper reflects the take-up rates of four big American government programs:
- Supplementary nutrition aid program: 82%
- Medicaid: 50%for adults, 65%for children
- Temporary assistance to needy families: 28%
- Earned income tax loan: 77%
Can technology solve these problems? Its answer is ‘yes’ in theory, but in practice it is often the answer.
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels contract with IBM, so that he used technology to solve what he explained as fraud, error and poor service issues. The use of automation allowed distance applications and approval, reducing compliance costs. But the resulting systems were permanent and error-stricken, increased the burden on customers and leading to a major decline in enrollment for complementary nutrition aid programs, temporary assistance and Medicade for needy families. The decline was especially large in high poverty counties …
This paper is interesting throughout the time and summarizes a lot of great evidence on the challenges of administrative burden to take public services. You can read the entire paper here.
