How we verify what you read

Right now, across the catalog

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What each status means

A benefit shows exactly one of these four statuses, always with an icon and a label — never color alone.

• Checked automatically

  A program we run rereads the official source page on a schedule. The figures on this benefit matched what that page said as of the date shown, and any future change is sent to a reviewer before it reaches you.

• Confirmed by a person

  The official source for this benefit blocks automated reading, so a member of our team reads it by hand and records the date. Between reviews, confirm current figures on the official page before you rely on them.

• Not recently checked

  We have not been able to confirm this benefit recently — the automated check has not succeeded within our window, and we do not have a recent manual confirmation either. Treat the figures as a starting point and confirm on the official page.

• Not currently verifiable

  This benefit has no source we can currently check automatically, and we have no confirmation on file (or it is old enough that we are not counting it). Use the official page directly.

How often we check

• A dispatcher runs every five minutes and re-reads whichever official sources are due next, on a rotating schedule sized to each source.
• A self-audit runs every night and records how much of the catalog is actually current, so a slipping number gets noticed rather than assumed away.
• Each morning our review team receives a digest of what was re-checked, what could not be confirmed, and what needs a person; if the review queue falls behind its schedule, the team is alerted the same day.

Nothing reaches you without a person in the loop

When an automated check finds a figure that looks different from what is on the page, it is queued as a proposed change with the source text attached — it is never written to the catalog on its own. A reviewer compares the proposal to the source and approves or rejects it. A veteran only ever sees a figure a person has signed off on, whether that sign-off happened today or when the benefit was first added.

What we never do

• We do not disguise our automated reader as a web browser. It identifies itself honestly, with a contact address an official site's abuse desk can reach — even where that costs us access to a site that only accepts disguised traffic.
• We do not route checks through proxies to get around a site's access controls.
• When an official source blocks our automated reader, we do not work around it silently — that benefit's status says so, and it moves to manual review instead.

Every benefit's own page shows its verification status and the date it was last checked.