Benefits.gov will close in September

Benefits.gov, the Labor Department’s website that aims to consolidate information on government benefits, is closing. The existing General Services Administration websites — USA.gov and USA.gov en Español — will replace it next month.

The closure of Benefits.gov and the transfer of its content to USA.gov was envisioned in a 2021 Executive Order on Customer Experience, which directed GSA to transform USA.gov into “a central, digital ‘federal gateway’ from which customers can navigate to all government benefits, services, and programs” — including by consolidating content from Benefits.gov.

GSA unveiled revamped versions of USA.gov and its Spanish counterpart last year. The long-term goal, agency officials said Next Row/FCWis about offering services on a website, rather than just providing information and directing users to another location where they can perform tasks.

Benefits.gov, formerly called GovBenefits.gov, was used by more than 220 million people, according to the Labor Department. Its features include a “benefits search tool” to help match people with programs and, most recently, a machine-learning chatbot. The site had 16 agency and state partners.

After the facility closes next month, citizens will be able to search for benefits on USA.gov as the “new hub for all federal benefits information,” according to the Labor Department.

According to the Department of Labor’s announcement about the change, Benefits.gov was first launched in early 2002 as part of President George W. Bush’s management plan. GCN At the time, accounts described the site as Bush’s first “e-government” initiative, where “users can answer a few general questions and a screening tool guides them to a list of benefit programs that are most likely to meet their needs.”

According to GSA, the roots of USA.gov go back to the turn of the century when it was known as Firstgov.gov. It was initially created as a donation of an Internet search engine to the federal government by an Internet entrepreneur.

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

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

“If we tried to go through each of these programs and understand the rules, it would be like reading the IRS tax code, which is very dense and complicated,” Ed Hugler, then deputy assistant secretary of labor for operations and e-government project manager, said in a statement in GCNhistory of that time.

A 2002 media announcement about the FirstGov redesign described it as “a gateway for Americans to easily and accessible interact with the federal government.”

“This is an important step toward making the people’s government more people-friendly,” said Stephen Perry, then head of the General Services Administration..