U.S. Government Benefits

There are 19 categories of U.S. Government benefits that are available to assist you with meeting your everyday living requirements. The GovBenefits.gov website is a very useful tool that allows you to search for government benefits that you might be able to receive. The site offers both federal and state benefit programs. The site is free and you are able to use it as often as you need.

The current federal benefit list consists of 406 programs from 28 federal agency contributors. The number of agency programs varies from one to 96. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provides the majority of the benefit programs.

The Department of Health and Human Services administers some of the most well known benefit programs like Medicaid and Medicare. In addition to these popular programs, HHS provides assistance programs for child care, alcohol and drug programs, family planning, health services, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and refugee assistance.

The U.S. Department of Education has over 50 benefit and assistance programs. As you would think, these programs are targeted toward providing financial assistance to students and improving educational opportunities. The Federal Pell Grants and Federal Perkins Loan Program are two popular programs that help students with college tuition. In addition to the educational programs, the Education department also provides independent living grants for individuals with disabilities.

There are 48 benefit programs available to Veterans through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. These benefits include medical care, nursing services, counseling, insurance, burial benefits, education and home loans.

Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have over 30 benefit and assistance programs. Most of the USDA programs benefit farmers and other agricultural producers. These programs provide farmers with crop insurance and emergency loans. In addition to agriculture programs, the USDA allows administers the Food Stamp and Summer Food Service Programs as well as habitat and watershed protection.

The HUD programs help you with housing and home mortgages. These programs include Fair Housing Initiatives, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured home mortgages, HUD Homes for Sale, public housing assistance, and Hope for Homeowners. Hope for Homeowners is a new program for people at risk of losing their home due to default and foreclosure. The program provides new, 30-year, fixed rate mortgages insured by the FHA.