Retrieve historical and current benefit program eligibility criteria via the Benefits.gov program data API for screening tools

Verified steps

1. Benefits.gov exposes a public REST API for benefit program data; access the program list endpoint to retrieve a catalog of federal benefit programs with their agency, category, and eligibility summary.
2. Call the programs endpoint (consult the Benefits.gov developer resources or api.data.gov for the current base URL and path) with a filter for program category (e.g., health, housing, food assistance) to retrieve relevant program subsets.
3. For each program, retrieve the detail record which includes programTitle, agencyName, popularName, benefitDescription, and applicantEligibilityDescription — the eligibility description is free-text and intended for human consumption.
4. Parse the eligibilityDescription and benefitSummary fields to extract screening criteria keywords (income thresholds, age requirements, citizenship requirements); note that structured eligibility rules are not machine-readable in this API — use the text as a reference layer.
5. For a fully automated benefits screening engine, supplement Benefits.gov program descriptions with program-specific eligibility APIs (CMS for Medicaid/CHIP, SSA for SSDI/SSI) that do expose structured criteria.
6. Refresh your local program cache periodically (monthly or on-demand) by calling the full program list endpoint; program details change when Congress or agencies modify eligibility rules.