Illinois Benefit Hub launches with PolicyEngine-powered eligibility screening

The Illinois Benefit Hub has launched, bringing the MyFriendBen benefits screening platform to Illinois residents. This expansion makes Illinois the fourth state where MyFriendBen helps families identify potential financial support programs they may qualify for, following launches in Colorado, North Carolina, and New York.

Illinois Benefit Hub is an initiative of Benefit Illinois, a project working to increase public benefits enrollment in Illinois. The platform is powered by MyFriendBen, which integrates with PolicyEngine's open-source API to calculate eligibility and benefit amounts for federal and state programs.

The tool offers Illinois residents a six-minute screener to check eligibility for dozens of public benefit programs at once, including food assistance, health insurance, child care subsidies, tax credits, and more. Beyond screening, Illinois Benefit Hub also provides application assistance to help users find organizations that can answer questions about benefit programs, program updates to keep residents informed about policy changes, and resource directories to find services in their community.

Illinois Benefit Hub uses PolicyEngine's API to perform complex benefit calculations. Our models calculate eligibility and benefit amounts for programs like SNAP, Medicaid, SSI, TANF, and federal and state tax credits including the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit.

This partnership exemplifies how PolicyEngine's open-source infrastructure can power user-facing tools that help families understand their financial options. By handling the computational complexity, we enable partners like MyFriendBen to focus on creating accessible experiences for the people who need them most.

Are you a developer or organization interested in integrating tax and benefit calculations into your own tools? The PolicyEngine API that powers Illinois Benefit Hub's calculations is available for your projects as well.

Our API can help you:

• Calculate eligibility and benefit amounts for major programs like SNAP, Medicaid, SSI, and TANF
• Estimate federal and state tax liabilities and credits
• Model the impact of policy reforms
• Create tools that help people understand their financial options

We invite developers, nonprofits, government agencies, and researchers to reach out to us at contact@policyengine.org to discuss how our API might support your work in making benefits and tax systems more accessible.