The following three papers examine how public policies and technological tools shape access to and decision-making across early childcare labor markets, higher education, and child welfare systems. Each paper investigates a different institutional setting but shares a common focus on how policies and interventions may improve or complicate outcomes for vulnerable populations.In the first paper, I examine the childcare industry’s response to state-level minimum wage increases between 1995 and 2019. Using a border-discontinuity design, I find that while overall numbers of childcare establishments remained steady, minimum wage hikes led to increased establishment turnover and decreased employment at the establishment level. These shifts were accompanied by compositional changes, as larger waged-sector providers were more likely to survive or enter the market, while the self-employed sector saw a decline in providers with advanced education. These results highlight the potential trade-off of minimum wage policies, while they might improve worker compensation they may reduce access to childcare. In the second paper, we examine whether access to an algorithmic decision-support tool improves outcomes in child welfare. In a randomized trial, caseworkers with access to the tool made faster decisions, though data limitations reduced our ability to detect impacts on child outcomes. We find suggestive evidence of risk aversion, as caseworkers were more likely to screen in high-risk referrals but did not adjust for low-risk ones. The time saved during discussion may allow caseworkers more time for meaningful engagement with families. The third paper explores the democratizing potential of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using individual learner engagement data from over 275,000 DataCamp users, we show that pandemic-induced business closures increased both new user sign-ups and engagement across income and racial groups. The findings suggest that online learning platforms can expand access to in-demand skills for all learners, especially during periods of economic disruption. Together, these papers contribute to our understanding of how policy and technology interact with institutional constraints and frontline decision-making, with implications for designing more even-handed and effective systems.