Safety Net

Inspiration

Every year, $150 billion in government benefits go unclaimed across the United States. Not because people don’t need them but because claiming them is a second job that most people can’t afford to take on right after losing their first one. Consider what a laid-off worker in New York is actually entitled to. Unemployment Insurance pays up to $869 per week, yet only 28% of eligible workers receive it. SNAP offers up to $292 per month, but 1 in 3 eligible Americans never enrolls, leaving billions unclaimed. Medicaid can provide free health coverage after job loss, but the 60-day enrollment window is rarely communicated. COBRA and ACA plans are also time-bound, and if an unemployment claim is denied, workers have just 30 days to appeal. These benefits exist but tight deadlines, fragmented systems, and poor communication mean most people never access them.

These programs exist. The money is allocated. The problem is not eligibility, it’s that navigating five separate agency portals, with five different forms, five different deadlines, and five different appeal processes, while simultaneously dealing with the stress of job loss, is something most people simply cannot do. The average laid-off worker claims 1–2 of the 4–6 programs they are entitled to. The rest goes unclaimed. $150 billion, every year.

That’s the problem. Here’s where we come from: all four of us are international students at Cornell. We know firsthand what it feels like to sit in front of a government portal — Sprintax Calculus, the F-1 tax filing system — for hours, parsing legal jargon written for lawyers, unsure if you’re doing it right, and haunted by the suspicion that you’re missing benefits you’re actually entitled to. We were. We built SafetyNet so that the next person in that situation doesn’t have to be.

What it does

The app gathers personal & financial information from the client. It parses the PDFs to extract relevant information that helps in finding if any benefits exist. Then, it creates a dashboard of appropriate benefits the client can claim, and each benefit has relevant details. These details help generate appropriate paperwork for each benefit and direct the client to the website to apply instantly.

How we built it

We have used Claude Code and Design for both the GUI and the backend. We have used ChatGPT to generate test layoff PDFs.

Challenges we ran into

Getting the Claude API to work, extracting PDF information, and suggesting appropriate benefits for the client.
Able to generate test layoff letters and COBRA letters
Research into the necessary documents needed to file for benefits, and reading about the financial, ethical, and legal aspects of this project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

To be able to integrate the Claude API and suggest appropriate benefits. To see that the numbers/money benefits are similar to the test cases. To be able to design a functional GUI.