Frequently Asked Questions
Who is this tool designed to help?
The Benefits Gap Estimates Dashboard provides data on public benefit eligibility and dollars left on the table at the census tract and zip code level to assist policymakers, researchers, direct-service/place-based organizations, philanthropy, and government entities in understanding and addressing social sector needs.
How can this tool support your work?
For nonprofit and CBO leaders, we hope this tool helps you prioritize interventions and secure funding by identifying high-impact areas and demonstrating effectiveness.
For policymakers and government entities, we hope this tool helps with strategic budgeting and advocating for increased funding in high-need areas using data-driven insights.
For philanthropic organizations we hope this tool helps ensure you make informed investment decisions by targeting high-need areas for maximum social returns.
How does this data differ from existing data on benefit eligibility?
Traditional measures of benefit eligibility are done at the State level due to data limitations. This data is directional in nature as we calculated the size of the gap at the Census-level for benefits that have not previously been calculated. The Benefits Gap Dashboard is the first public tool that has been created to view potential eligible families at the Census tract level.
Can I download a report of the data?
Yes, you can download the data into a PDF or print it directly from the dashboard. To do this, simply click the print icon located at the bottom of the dashboard. The tool will generate a snapshot of the region and benefit(s) that you have filtered.
To download a PDF of the data:
- Click the print icon on the bottom of the dashboard.
- In the Print window that appears, look for the "Destination" section.
- Select "Save as PDF" from the options.
- Click "Save" to download the document as a PDF.
This will give you a convenient and printable version of the data for your records or further analysis.
Who built the Benefits Gap Dashboard?
The Benefits Gap Dashboard was built by the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL). The Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL) operates as an unofficial R&D department for Dallas, rethinking how data can be integrated into public systems, community programs, and neighborhood life to break cycles of intergenerational poverty.
How can I provide feedback, ask a question, or connect with the team?
Please fill out this contact form on the Child Poverty Action Lab website and we will get back to you.
Where can I find more detailed metadata about the data sets?
See our Methodology document to learn about our eligibility/dollar estimates, sources, information on data updates, and definitions of data variables across benefits.
What data limitations exist?
Many limitations exist to getting an accurate count of the eligible population. The most obvious data limitations are lack of granularity in data and the lack of timeliness of data release or lag time. Additional limitations include data quality issues in government datasets, outdated information (especially as it pertains to eligibility criteria), complex and inconsistent formats across agencies (e.g., non-machine-readable PDFs), lack of documentation to understand definitions of variables and changing definitions over time, restrictions to accessing certain data sets, .
Many times we found ourselves on the phone with 211 for hours running through eligibility criteria that seemed to be ever changing.
The American Community Survey (ACS) in particular has many data limitations, including privacy guidelines and anonymization that limits data granularity, sampling and coverage errors, bias due to response and nonresponse rates, data lags, margins of error (specifically for small geographic areas), complex statistical adjustments and weighting, and comparative data set limitations to the decennial census and administrative data sets due to varying methods and definitions.
Why do some neighborhood names not exactly map with what I know about my area?
Mapping neighborhood boundaries is a complicated process. We use information from a report done in 2015 by BC Workshop to identify neighborhood names. The methodology used in the report estimates neighborhood boundaries and therefore does not always map exactly to neighborhood names.
Methods
For a detailed description of the data sources and methodology used to calculate the figures see the Methodology document.
