Benefits.gov to shutter in September

Benefits.gov, a Labor Department website meant to consolidate information about government benefits, is shutting down. The General Services Administration’s existing websites — USA.gov and USA.gov en Español — will take its place next month. 

The move to shutter Benefits.gov and move its content to USA.gov was called for in a 2021 executive order on customer experience, which asked GSA to make USA.gov into the “centralized, digital ‘Federal Front Door’ from which customers may navigate to all Government benefits, services and programs” — including by consolidating content from Benefits.gov.

GSA debuted revamped versions of USA.gov and its Spanish counterpart last year. The long-term goal, agency officials have told Nextgov/FCW, is to offer services themselves on the website, as opposed to only offering information and directing users elsewhere to complete any tasks.

Benefits.gov, formerly called GovBenefits.gov, has been used by over 220 million people, according to the Labor Department. Among its features is a “benefits finder tool” meant to help screen individuals for programs and, more recently, a machine learning chatbot. The website had 16 agency and state partners.

When it shutters next month, people will be able to search for benefits on USA.gov as the “new hub for all federal benefits information,” the Labor Department says.

Benefits.gov first launched in early 2002 as part of President George W. Bush’s management agenda, according to the Labor Department’s announcement of the change. GCN coverage from the time described the page as the first of Bush’s “E-Government” initiatives, where “users can answer some general questions and a screening tool points them to a list of benefits programs that likely will meet their needs.”

USA.gov also has its roots in the turn of the century as Firstgov.gov, according to GSA, and was initially sparked by an internet entrepreneur’s donation of a search engine to the federal government.

The Biden administration’s current focus on customer experience, or how the public experiences and perceives the government, has echoes of the original discourse surrounding both websites. 

Benefits.gov originally launched with information about Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and student loans. A common goal between then and now has been to not force people to parse government jargon online.

“If you tried to look up each of these programs and understand the rules, it would be like reading the IRS tax code, very dense and complex,” Ed Hugler — then the deputy assistant secretary of Labor for operations and its e-government project manager — said in a statement in GCN’s story at the time.

A media announcement about a redesigned FirstGov in 2002 describes it as “the gateway for connecting the American people with the federal government in an easy and accessible manner.” 

It's "an important step to make the people's government more people-friendly," Stephen Perry, then-head of the General Services Administration, said at the time.

But not everyone is pleased with the new structure.

E-government efforts were "focused on using the internet to simplify and reduce the burdens of interacting with government," Mark Forman — who previously served as the first administrator for e-government, the position now called the federal CIO — told Nextgov/FCW via email. That "required busting each program’s parochial desire to have a unique and separate relationship with a beneficiary, which was simply unrealistic."

A big focus for the original design was finding what you needed within 3 clicks or less, said Forman, noting that he was skeptical of USA.gov's new focus on "life events" as a way to organize parts of the website. He called the new format a "miss on customer service" that "leaves it up to the public to figure it out."

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include comments from the former administrator for e-government.