This explores how tax credit systems can be redesigned to better meet the needs of families, especially those facing systemic barriers to filing and receiving benefits.
The team developed an AI-powered explanation feature that effectively translates complex, multi-program policy calculations into clear and accessible explanations, enabling users to explore "what-if" scenarios and understand key factors influencing benefit amounts and eligibility thresholds.
A brief report on our quantitative research about messages that increase people's take-up of government benefits by making them feel like those benefits belong to them.
Data provided by the NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity regarding benefit, program, and resource information for over 80 health and human services available to NYC residents in all eleven local law languages.
PolicyEngine is a nonprofit that provides a free, open-source web app enabling users in the US and UK to estimate taxes and benefits at the household level, while also simulating the effects of policy changes. By combining tax and benefits data, PolicyEngine helps individuals and policymakers better understand the impacts of existing policies and proposed reforms, using microsimulation models built from legislation and enhanced survey data.
This article examines how administrative burdens in U.S. social safety net programs have changed over the past 30 years, showing that while average burdens have declined, inequality in who faces these burdens has grown.
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
The Improving Service Delivery in EITC for New Yorkers initiative explores ways to enhance access to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) through improved outreach, application processes, and service delivery.
This report calculates the cumulative impact of major benefit programs on two types of families and how their benefits change as they move into the labor market and climb the ladder of upward mobility.
Our existing maze of family tax benefits — including the CTC, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC), and head of household (HoH) filing status — has several structural deficiencies that make overhauling the system a prerequisite for any effort to boost support for families with children. The report offers several options for expanding and streamlining family tax benefits to address these issues.
This article examines how applying a Racial Equity Framework reveals systemic inequities in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program, offering insights into barriers faced by marginalized communities and potential solutions.
This report examines how the U.S. federal government can enhance the efficiency and equity of benefit delivery by simplifying eligibility rules and using a Rules as Code approach for digital systems.
The Atlanta Fed’s CLIFF tools provide greater transparency to workers about potential public assistance losses when their earnings increase. We find three broad themes in organization-level implementation of the CLIFF tools: identifying the tar- get population of users; integrating the tool into existing operations; and integrating the tool into coaching sessions.
