VERIFY.GOV
STREAMLINING ONLINE INCOME VERIFICATION FOR SELF-EMPLOYED + GIG ECONOMY WORKERS ACROSS AMERICA
As the first-ever Product Management Intern at the White House’s United States Digital Service, I worked with an interdisciplinary technical team on a digital verification tool for Americans to verify self-employment work. Here, I wore many hats for the product strategy, user research, and product design of an income verification product.
As the first-ever Product Management Intern at the White House’s United States Digital Service, I worked with an interdisciplinary technical team on a digital verification tool for Americans to verify self-employment work. Here, I wore many hats for the product strategy, user research, and product design of an income verification product.
BACKGROUND THE STAKES ARE HIGH
Income verification is the cornerstone for essential government services like Medicaid and SNAP. Approximately 25 million eligible people lost Medicaid coverage after the pandemic, and over 5 million have missed out on SNAP benefits due to procedural errors in verifying their income.
Many of the individuals who aren’t able to gain access to government benefits despite qualifying are self-employed and gig economy workers who lack W2 paperwork to verify their income, leading to the question:
How can we best serve non-W2 workers to verify their income and access their entitled government benefits?
THE STAKES ARE HIGH
Income verification is the cornerstone for essential government services like Medicaid and SNAP. Approximately 25 million eligible people lost Medicaid coverage after the pandemic, and over 5 million have missed out on SNAP benefits due to procedural errors in verifying their income.
Many of the individuals who aren’t able to gain access to government benefits despite qualifying are self-employed and gig economy workers who lack W2 paperwork to verify their income, leading to the question:
How can we best serve non-W2 workers to verify their income and access their entitled government benefits?
PROCESSEMPATHIZING WITH THE PROBLEM
To thoroughly create a platform for income verification, we looked at the problem from the perspective of both the individual and the government worker who would review the eligibility of each case.
EMPATHIZING WITH THE PROBLEM
To thoroughly create a platform for income verification, we looked at the problem from the perspective of both the individual and the government worker who would review the eligibility of each case.
Focused on both Medicaid and SNAP eligibility, I led the outreach strategy to key stakeholders across multiple states, from state departments of health and human services, to food banks, to hospitals. This meant authoring the questions we were asking, facilitating introductory calls, and defining bi-weekly metric to gauge how we were making progress in better empathizing with the problem.
DELIVERABLE
Through multiple co-design sessions and stakeholder engagements, we established a simplified work flow that could seamlessly integrate across states and diverse types of income.
CONSOLIDATED USER FLOW
Through multiple co-design sessions and stakeholder engagements, we established a simplified work flow that could seamlessly integrate across states and diverse types of income.
Interestingly, as the mission of the federal government, we were obligated to design for all the possible edge cases. A critical question that I helped navigate was exactly what these edge cases looked like and how we might address them — from pay stubs, to app receipts, to manual logbooks, from multiple streams of income to season workers, a core “go-to-market” principle for verify.gov was the thoughtful consideration of all of our users.
Previous precedents and prototypes before our team averaged 12+ screens for users to verify their income. We halved that, and then some, depending on the user’s verification needs.
DELIVERABLE
Verify.gov (later known as VerifyMyIncome.gov) marks the fastest experience in history for non-W2 workers to verify their income. Optimizing for user flexibility and empowering them with multiple options on how to go about verifying their income, verify.gov significantly reduces the administrative barrier on both the user and the eligibility office, making way for more Americans to receive the benefits they’re entitled to.
VERIFY.GOV
Verify.gov (later known as VerifyMyIncome.gov) marks the fastest experience in history for non-W2 workers to verify their income. Optimizing for user flexibility and empowering them with multiple options on how to go about verifying their income, verify.gov significantly reduces the administrative barrier on both the user and the eligibility office, making way for more Americans to receive the benefits they’re entitled to.
Through rigorous user testing and product strategy, verify.gov cuts to the chase to get the information needed to verify an individual’s eligibility, without the excessiveness government forms might be prone to.
BY THE NUMBERS
IMPACT IN DATA
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Projected to interface with 16.1 million (10.1%) Americans
- Co-designed solutions with 9 welfare agencies / community partners across 3 states in Summer 2024
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Estimated to save 50,000+ hours/year for state SNAP and Medicaid eligibility offices
Verify.gov is expected to launch in 2025. ✶