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Oct 12, 2026
PolicyEngine's microsimulation package published in the Journal of Open Source Software
The peer-reviewed paper describing policyengine, the open-source Python package for UK and US tax-benefit microsimulation that powers PolicyEngine, is now published in JOSS.
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Sep 29, 2026
Our 2025 poverty prediction, graded
PolicyEngine registered a 2025 SPM poverty prediction before the Census release: up 0.2 points overall, up 0.9 for children, down 0.5 for people 65 and over. Census reported +0.1, −0.1 and +0.2. The grade, and where the misses came from: the model grew Social Security, pensions and self-employment income per person at national rates. Rerunning it with rates closer to the survey's removes most of the senior miss and about a third of the child miss.
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Sep 18, 2026
2025 Supplemental Poverty Measure: what Census reported, and what threshold growth did to it
Census reported 13.1 percent SPM poverty in 2025, up 0.1 point from 2024. We show the rate by age, housing tenure, and state, and find it would have fallen 0.7 points if thresholds rose with inflation.
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Sep 17, 2026
FUTA taxable wage base dashboard
Estimates the federal revenue from raising the FUTA taxable wage base from $7,000 (unchanged since 1983) to $43,000 in 2026, roughly the median annual wage, and indexing it to inflation: $317 billion over ten years, with year-by-year results, validation against IRS collections, and a downloadable CSV, using PolicyEngine microsimulation.
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Sep 15, 2026
Child poverty impact dashboard
Estimate how federal and state tax and benefit reforms — Child Tax Credits, EITCs, child allowances, dependent exemptions, and SNAP — would affect child poverty, household incomes, and state budgets in all 50 states and DC, using PolicyEngine microsimulation.
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Featured research
2026 state legislative tracker
Track federal and state tax and benefit bills, with PolicyEngine's estimates of each scored bill's budget, poverty, and household impacts.
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The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, household by household
Explore how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) changes resources for each modeled US household in 2026, and which provisions drive the change.
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Tools
PolicyEngine app
Build a tax or benefit reform and see its budgetary and distributional impacts.
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CliffWatch
See how benefits, refundable tax credits, taxes, and net income change for US households as earnings rise.
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Coverage Compass
Model how life events — moving, income changes, pregnancy — affect a household's healthcare coverage and out-of-pocket costs across Medicaid, CHIP, and the ACA marketplace.
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GiveCalc
Calculate the tax benefits of charitable giving.
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Marriage calculator
See how marriage affects taxes, benefits, and net income for US households across all states.
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QBI deduction calculator
Calculate the qualified business income deduction under IRC §199A for any filing status, including the W-2 wage and property limits and the phase-out for specified service businesses.
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SPM threshold calculator
Calculate Supplemental Poverty Measure thresholds by family composition, housing tenure, and local area.
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TANF calculator
See TANF eligibility and benefit amounts for US households across all states.
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