Exposing Error in Poverty Management Technology: A Method for Auditing Government Benefits Screening Tools
This paper introduces a method for auditing benefits eligibility screening tools in four steps: 1) generate test households, 2) automatically populate screening questions with household information and retrieve determinations, 3) translate eligibility guidelines into computer code to generate ground truth determinations, and 4) identify conflicting determinations to detect errors.
The document outlines a method for auditing government benefits screening tools, revealing that these tools can make significant errors that affect eligibility determinations.
By using realistic test cases and comparing tool outputs to legal eligibility rules, the authors found both under- and over-inclusion errors, emphasizing the importance of transparency, accuracy, and regular audits to ensure fair access to public benefits.
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