In one of the first systemic victories against algorithmic decision-making in the country, we defeated an algorithm Arkansas used to cut the daily in-home care that disabled and elderly people need to stay at home in their communities and stay out of nursing homes. See the arguments, education sessions, activation strategies, and media stories that fueled our groundbreaking win.

In another groundbreaking case—one of the first to break through the “qualified immunity” of state Medicaid officials—we sued again after the state replaced the previous algorithm with another that targeted a new group of disabled and elderly people for devastating cuts. We obtained a historic, $500,000 settlement that compensated our clients for their suffering and guaranteed program improvements for 11,000+ people.

At the height of the pandemic, Arkansas quit paying unemployment benefits to 90,000 eligible recipients who depended on that money to pay rent and buy food. The cause? An identity verification algorithm that wrongly flagged people for extra ID checks that took the state over six months to process. When the state refused to reveal how the algorithm worked, we sued and got the information.

Like other public benefit programs, Social Security has complex asset rules that limit who gets benefits and uses algorithms to enforce them. When the algorithms go wrong, as often happens, low-income people lose benefits until they prove they don’t own the property alleged. We’ve helped several people convince Social Security to turn benefits back on.