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American Rescue Plan
Data & Evidence Dashboard

The American Rescue Plan (ARP) is the largest one-time federal investment in state and local governments in the last century, providing $350 billion in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) to state, territorial, local, and tribal governments to make critical and historic investments in people and infrastructure.

The U.S. Department of Treasury released the Compliance and Reporting Guidance for the SLFRF Program that encourages state and local governments to invest in solutions with evidence of effectiveness, while also requiring these governments to track certain outcomes. The guidance encourages key data, evidence, and outcomes practices, defines eligible uses of ARP funds and provides a reporting template and timeline for cities and counties.

Results for America worked with Mathematica to assess 200 Recovery Plan Performance Reports (Recovery Plans) submitted by state and local governments in July 2022 to identify how they are investing these funds and their adherence to key data, evidence and outcomes practices articulated in the guidance.

Read more about our methodology of reviewing plans below and discover trends for yourself in our ARP Data & Evidence dashboard here.

Methodology

Jurisdiction Selection

We reviewed 200 Recovery Plans submitted by state, territorial, local, and tribal governments in July 2022 for this dashboard. This includes SLFRF reports from all 50 states, 83 counties, and 67 cities. The counties and cities were chosen to be a representative sample from across the country – big and mid-size, from every region, with diverse populations – to provide insights for how governments are investing their federal recovery funds.

Data

The expenditure data featured on our ARP Dashboard are from the January 2023 Quarterly Reporting Data provided by the U.S. Department of Treasury, which covers all SLFRF investments through December 31, 2022.

Tab 1: Investment Trends

For each jurisdiction, the total amount expended represents the sum of expenditures for each project the jurisdiction has included in its Recovery Plan. Totals are also reported for each expenditure category. The percentage of expenditures in each expenditure category is calculated by dividing a jurisdiction’s expenditures in an expenditure category by the jurisdiction’s total expenditures. If a jurisdiction did not submit project data or does not have a positive expenditure total for the projects they submitted, the total expenditure for the jurisdiction will show as zero in the dashboard.

Tab 2: Investment Areas

RFA identified 12 investment categories and associated key terms with each category. Research analysts helped determine if a jurisdiction was investing in that category, regardless of whether the funds were proposed, obligated, or expended.

1. COVID Mitigation & Prevention: Investments to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic public health crisis.

2. Public Health: Investments pertaining to public health, outside those related to COVID response and behavioral health.

3. Infrastructure: Investments in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure to improve access to clean drinking water, support vital wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, and improve public transportation.

4. Workforce Development: Investments in programs to help workers and the local economy build and thrive.

5. Housing & Homelessness Services: Investments to promote stable housing, such as services to help people experiencing homelessness and plans to develop new housing.

6. Behavioral Health: Investments to meet emotional health and substance treatment needs.

7. Justice & Public Safety: Investments to enhance public safety and improve equity within the justice system and those who engage with it.

8. K-12 Education: Investments to K-12 programs supporting positive outcomes for students and faculty, as well as improved facilities.

9. Parks & Recreation: Investments to support community development and beautification efforts.

10. Early Childhood: Investments to improve outcomes for young children and their families through childcare and early childhood programs.

11. Intergovernmental Collaboration: Investments to promote intergovernmental collaboration and improvement.

12. Financial Security: Investments in programs to improve financial security, such as unconditional financial payments to support the basic needs of the recipients.

Tab 3: Recovery Plan Score

Five Key Practices

The U.S. Department of Treasury’s Final Rule for SLFRF aims to strengthen state, local and tribal governments’ ability to build a stronger future by prioritizing five key practices for their ARP SLFRF investments:

  • Implement evidence-based programs;
  • Invest in impact evaluation;
  • Enhance data and evidence capacity;
  • Engage the community; and
  • Ensure equitable outcomes.

Results for America and Mathematica partnered to review and score all plans based on the 5 evidence and data practices above using the following criteria.

Ratings

Recovery Plans were rated 0-2 for each key data and evidence practices described above – for a total possible score of 10:

  • No Evidence of Implementation: Plans were scored 0 if there was no mention of the data and evidence practice in the plan;
  • Promising Implementation: Plans were scored 1 if the data and evidence practice was mentioned, though there were minimal details; and
  • Clear Implementation: Plans were scored 2 if the data and evidence practice was clearly prioritized with details of the effort, including a research base, designed processes, external resources/partners, etc.

Review

Recovery Plans were reviewed in two ways:

  1. Individually by project to identify investments in evidence-based solutions, impact evaluation, and data and evidence capacity building.
  2. Comprehensively to score plans’ overall commitment to the five evidence and data practices with particular attention paid to how jurisdictions planned to engage the community and ensure equitable outcomes.

Analysts reviewed the Recovery Plans, asking the following questions for each evidence and data practices:

Evidence-based Solutions

  • Did the jurisdiction invest in/prioritize evidence-based solutions?
  • Does the jurisdiction identify/footnote any proof of evidence-base?
  • Is the investment evidenced-based and if so, what level of evidence?

Impact Evaluation

  • Is the jurisdiction investing in impact evaluations for any SLFRF funded work, including quasi experimental evaluations?
  • Is the jurisdiction investing in evaluations for new/pilot initiatives?

Building Data & Evidence Capacity

  • Is the jurisdiction using data to drive decision-making?
  • Does the jurisdiction invest in any efforts to enhance data/evidence capacity?

Community Engagement

  • Did the jurisdiction engage the community?
  • Did the outreach/engagement connect with historically underserved communities or communities that were most impacted from the COVID-19 pandemic?
  • Did the jurisdiction conduct outreach to the community and stakeholders?
  • Did the jurisdiction employ multiple methods of outreach?
  • Is there indication the community feedback informed SLFRF activities, program design, budgeting, or other decision making?

Ensuring Equitable Outcomes

  • Were the communities that have been most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic or those historically underserved identified?
  • Did the jurisdiction use a method, such as a framework or process, to embed equity?
  • Did the jurisdiction use the following method(s) to embed equity?
    • Method 1: Define Equity goals
    • Method 2: Define Equity framework
    • Method 3: Collect, Analyze, Use Equity data
    • Method 4: Collect, Analyze, Use Disaggregated data
  • Did efforts to identify historically underserved communities and embed equity ultimately inform SLFRF activities, program design, budget, or other decisions?
  • What was the impact of identifying and embedding equity?

Tab 4: Notable Projects

Research analysts identified SLFRF notable projects that implement an evidence-based solution, use an impact evaluation, or enhance data and/or evidence capacity. Analysts determined 2022’s  notable projects by reviewing the project inventory in a jurisdiction’s Recovery Plan and any supplemental materials the jurisdiction shared with Results for America.  Each notable project is connected to one of the 12  Investment Areas Results for America identified. Each project also identifies if the project is a pilot and its listed program budget (in hundreds of thousands).

Evidence-based:

Notable Projects in this category are investing in evidence based models that have been proven effective, through past evaluations. Results for America consulted the Results First Clearinghouse Database in its review of projects. Additionally, each evidence based notable project is mapped to a strategy in Results for America’s Economic Mobility Catalog.

Impact Evaluation:

Notable Projects in this category have a description in the implementing jurisdiction’s report that suggests a clear intent to invest in an impact evaluation as defined by:

Evaluations that measure the change in a development outcome that is attributable to a defined intervention; based on models of cause and effect and require a credible and rigorously defined counterfactual to control for factors other than the intervention that might account for the observed change. (Pulled from USAID Toolkit)

  • A Randomized Control Trial (RCT)
  • A Comparison Study without Randomization (eg, participants vs non participants of similar demographics, a participant group that did not engage in a specific intervention)

Enhance Data and/or Evidence Capacity:

Notable Projects in this category have a description in the implementing jurisdiction’s report that suggests a clear intent to build internal data and evidence skills and to invest in related software and technology.