Where the figures come from
Every number this site shows comes from a figure a government agency publishes. None of them is an average, a projection, or last year's figure carried forward because this year's had not appeared yet.
100% Primary Sources
All formulas and thresholds are drawn directly from published federal and state statutory tables — never third-party projections or speculative averages.
Timely Policy Updates
Figures are updated the moment governing agencies publish new rate schedules, rather than waiting for arbitrary calendar year changes.
Open Verification
Every calculation tool links directly to its governing agency source page so you can independently audit and verify every number.
Who actually decides
This site decides nothing. Each calculator below names the agency that makes the real determination and links to that agency's own page, because that is where you apply and where a disagreement is settled.
Official Agency Directory by Calculator
Find the governing government body and official domain responsible for establishing eligibility rules and benefits for each program.
What is deliberately missing
Several programmes have no national figure to publish. Housing voucher amounts, energy assistance limits, TANF payment levels and most unemployment rules are set by each state or local authority, and there are thousands of them. Where that is so, the calculator works out everything federal law does fix, says plainly which part only your own state can answer, and shows no dollar figure at all rather than one invented to fill the space.
When the figures change
Most of these amounts are set once a year, and some change in the middle of one. A calculator is updated when the agency publishes, not when the year turns: until a new table exists, the current one is still the right answer. That is why pages say “latest official figures” instead of naming a year.
Checking us
Every figure here can be checked against the official page in the table above, and we would rather you did. If a number on this site disagrees with the agency's, the agency is right and we have a mistake to fix. Write to contact@benefitcalculators.com.