Inspiration
Millions of Americans face a hidden trap: earning slightly more money can leave them worse off stripped of food assistance, Medicaid, or housing subsidies all at once. This “benefits cliff” is poorly understood and almost impossible to navigate without a financial counselor. At the same time, households juggling the cliff are often also juggling late bills, debt, and competing financial priorities with no clear order of operations.
What it does
Safety Shield gives users one clear view of their financial situation across two dimensions:
Cliff Map—visualizes the income thresholds where state and federal benefits phase out, so users can see exactly where they stand and what a raise or new job might cost them in lost benefits. Debt Navigator analyzes the user’s bills and debt obligations and prioritizes them in an actionable order based on consequence and cost. One Plan—combines both engines into a single sequenced action list: what to pay, what to protect, and what income move makes sense given your specific cliff.
Users enter their state, household size, income, current benefits, and bills in a single intake form. Both engines read the same profile and output one unified plan no toggling between tools, no copy-pasting numbers.
How we built it
Frontend: Next.js with a custom design system built around a dark, high-contrast UI — ParticleText hero animation, FlipCard “How it works” sequence, SpecularButton CTAs, ScrollExpand animations, and GlareHover card effects for depth and motion. Auth & profiles: Login flow with persistent user profiles and a demo profile for immediate exploration without signup. Benefit rules engine: Encodes income thresholds and phase-out schedules for major federal and state programs, keyed by state and household size. Debt prioritization logic: Ranks obligations by interest rate, consequence of non-payment (eviction risk, utility shutoff, credit impact), and minimum payment pressure. Plan synthesis layer: Merges cliff proximity and debt priority into a single ordered output, surfacing the highest-leverage next step first. Deployed on Vercel.
Challenges we ran into
Benefit rule complexity: Federal programs have federal floors, but states layer on top — Medicaid expansion thresholds, SNAP categorical eligibility rules, and housing voucher income limits vary significantly. Encoding enough of this to be useful without being wrong was the hardest design constraint. Combining two different models into one output: The cliff map and debt navigator produce fundamentally different kinds of recommendations. Building a synthesis layer that sequences them coherently — without just listing everything — required several design iterations. Communicating uncertainty without undermining usefulness: The tool produces estimates, not determinations. Making that clear prominently enough to be honest, but not so prominently that users dismiss the results, was a real UX tension.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
A clean, single-intake flow that feeds two engines — users enter data once and get a full plan. An animation system (ParticleText, FlipCard, ScrollExpand, GlareHover) that communicates seriousness and structure rather than decoration. Clear scope-and-limits language that sets honest expectations without discouraging use. A demo profile that lets anyone explore the full experience in under a minute.
What's next for Safety-Shield
Expanded state coverage — currently prioritizing states with the most complex cliff structures; full 50-state benefit rule coverage is the next milestone. Income scenario modeling — let users drag a slider to see how a raise, a new job, or reduced hours shifts both their cliff exposure and their debt payoff timeline simultaneously. Counselor mode — a shareable read-only plan link so users can walk through their Safety Shield output with a benefits counselor, social worker, or financial coach. Mobile-first intake — optimized for the phones most users in this income band actually have. Partnerships — integrations with 211 referral networks and community action agencies to close the loop from plan to in-person support.
