Public benefits are a foundational pillar of household financial security, helping millions of families and individuals weather shocks they cannot manage with personal resources alone—but only when people can actually access them. Each year, an estimated $80 billion in U.S. public benefits go unclaimed, in part because the processes to receive and maintain them place significant administrative burdens on the people who need them most. 

To address access gaps, benefits screeners have emerged as a popular tool used by governments, nonprofits, and private companies to help people identify the public benefits they may be eligible for. Unlike a full benefits application, screeners typically require less information from users and cover multiple programs at once—including federal and state benefits—lowering the barrier to understanding what assistance is available. Yet while these tools can be useful, no comparison or systematic evaluation exists to understand whether these tools increase benefits access or what design features make them more effective.

Based on interviews conducted in 2025, this report synthesizes expert and practitioner perspectives to address these gaps and give nonprofit, philanthropic, government, and private sector leaders an understanding of the role screeners play in benefits access. 

For leaders exploring the use of a benefits screener, we have developed a framework for evaluating effective screener tools. The framework’s questions are intended to assess current or proposed benefit screeners against the best practices identified through our interviews with public benefits experts and practitioners:

On top of existing access challenges, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has introduced profound structural change to benefits programs, including new eligibility requirements that will likely lengthen applications, depress enrollment, and further strain state administrative capacity. Within this context, sharper tools for connecting people to benefits are urgently needed. This framework is intended for screener designers and implementers, benefits access funders, and government administrators seeking to assess—and strengthen—existing tools.