NYC Benefits Platform: Benefits and Programs — NYC Open Data

This dataset provides benefit, program, and resource information for over 80 health and human services available to NYC residents in all eleven local law languages. The data is kept up-to-date, including the most recent applications, eligibility requirements, and application dates. Information in this dataset is used on ACCESS NYC, Generation NYC, and Growing Up NYC. This Actor returns it as one flat JSON row per record, with 34 declared fields — typed, named and documented in the dataset schema, so a spreadsheet or an agent can use it without guessing.

What you get

Field	Type	Meaning
population_served	string	population_served
plain_language_eligibility	string	plain_language_eligibility
url_of_pdf_application_forms	string	url_of_pdf_application_forms
program_acronym	string	program_acronym
program_name	string	program_name
get_help_online	string	get_help_online
apply_in_person_call_to_action	string	apply_in_person_call_to_action
apply_by_mail_call_to_action	string	apply_by_mail_call_to_action
program_code	string	program_code
apply_online_call_to_action	string	apply_online_call_to_action
unique_id_number	string	unique_id_number
how_to_apply_or_enroll_online	string	how_to_apply_or_enroll_online
age_group	string	age_group
get_help_by_email	string	get_help_by_email
government_agency	string	government_agency
get_help_by_calling_311	string	get_help_by_calling_311
how_to_apply_summary	string	how_to_apply_summary
url_of_online_application	string	url_of_online_application
brief_excerpt	string	brief_excerpt
how_to_apply_or_enroll_by_mail	string	how_to_apply_or_enroll_by_mail

The output schema lists all 34 fields; the table above is the first twenty.

Every row also carries sourceRowId, sourceUpdatedAt and scrapedAt, so a pipeline can tell one record from another and know exactly when it was read.

{
  "population_served": "Families with children,Pregnant & new parents",
  "plain_language_eligibility": "<p>To claim the <strong>federal Child Tax Credit</strong>, you need to meet <strong>all </strong>of these requirements:<",
  "url_of_pdf_application_forms": "NULL",
  "program_acronym": "NULL",
  "program_name": "Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit",
  "get_help_online": "<p><strong>Visit </strong><a href=\"https://access.nyc.gov/programs/earned-income-tax-credit-eitc/nyc.gov/taxprep\"  targe",
  "apply_in_person_call_to_action": "Find a tax prep location",
  "apply_by_mail_call_to_action": "NULL"
}

Inputs

Field	What it does
Filter (SoQL)	Applied at the source, so a narrow question fetches a narrow page instead of downloading everything.
Order	Empty keeps the publisher's own order; set a column to sort, for example amount DESC.
Maximum rows	Hard cap. The source is paged 1,000 rows at a time.
Time budget	Stops cleanly and reports how far it got.
Pause between pages	Keeps the run inside the publisher's rate limits.

Limitations

• This is one dataset, from one publisher. It is the NYC Benefits Platform: Benefits and Programs Dataset dataset as Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity publishes it — not a national or cross-city equivalent, and not a merge with other sources.
• The publisher can change it. Columns are added, renamed and retired upstream; the field list here is the schema the Actor was generated from. A renamed column arrives as a new field only after the Actor is updated.
• Fields are typed from live records. A column that was empty in the sample is declared as text; a value that does not fit the declared type comes back null rather than being coerced into a wrong number.
• Records are what the publisher publishes. No geocoding, no de-duplication across datasets, no enrichment.
• Freshness is the publisher's. The data was last changed upstream on 2026-10-02. Where the publisher supplies a row timestamp it appears as sourceUpdatedAt; scrapedAt records when this Actor read the row.

Why this is different

• NYC Benefits Platform: Benefits and Programs — NYC Open Data declares all 34 of its output fields in the dataset schema, each with a type, a description and an example.
• The Actor reads the NYC Benefits Platform: Benefits and Programs Dataset dataset directly from NYC Open Data; no key, login or account is needed.
• Filters run at the source with SoQL, so a narrow request returns a narrow page rather than a full download.
• Every row is flat JSON: nested location objects become latitude and longitude, and no field holds a nested object.
• The row id is stable, so the same request de-duplicates instead of returning the same record twice.

FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. NYC Open Data publishes this dataset openly.

How fresh is it? The Actor reads the dataset live. scrapedAt records when each row was read, and sourceUpdatedAt carries the publisher's own row timestamp where it supplies one.

Can I filter by date or status? Yes — use the Filter field with SoQL, for example status = 'Active'.

What happens if my filter is wrong? The run stops with the portal's own message and the hint to check SoQL, rather than returning an empty dataset that looks like "no data".

Is this the whole dataset? Up to your row cap, paged 1,000 at a time. Raise the cap to read more.

What is sourceRowId? The publisher's own row id when it supplies one, otherwise a stable hash of the row. Either way it is what makes de-duplication and joins possible.

Pricing

Pay per result: $0.0005 per row. Each stored dataset row is billed, including any diagnostic row returned instead of results.

An Actor-start event is also charged at $0.0001 per GB of allocated memory (minimum one event), even if no rows are returned. At 1 GB or less, 1,000 result rows cost $0.5001 before any applicable Store discount.

Data source

NYC Open Data — NYC Benefits Platform: Benefits and Programs Dataset, published by Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity. Public data under the portal's open-data terms.