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 explores how AI and Rules as Code are turning law into automated systems, including how governance focused on transparency, explainability, and risk management can ensure these digital legal frameworks stay reliable and fair.
The team developed an application to simplify Medicaid and CHIP applications through LLM APIs while addressing limitations such as hallucinations and outdated information by implementing a selective input process for clean and current data.
We wrapped up Rules as Code Demo Day with Max Ghenis and Nikhil Woodruff, the founders of PolicyEngine. The PolicyEngine web app computes the impact of tax and benefit policy in the US and the UK. With PolicyEngine, anyone can freely calculate their taxes and benefits under current law and customizable policy reforms, and also estimate the society-wide impacts of those reforms. Policymakers and think tanks from across the political spectrum can analyze actual policy. PolicyEngine is built atop the open source OpenFisca US and UK microsimulation models and they are building an open unified data set utilizing data from the Policy Rules Database, Current Population Survey, Survey of Consumer Finances, Consumer Expenditures, tax records, and IRS Public Use File.
At Rules as Code Demo Day Seth Hartig from the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) and Bank Street College demoed the Policy Rules Database (PRD), a collaborative effort between the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the NCCP. The primary purpose of the PRD is to simplify the interpretation of all programs by creating a common structure and a common terminology. The repository allows for research on public assistance programs and tax policies, and helps users model benefits cliffs on career pathways. The PRD is supported by a technical manual with pseudocode that helps guide integration and usage in other platforms.
At Rules as Code Demo Day we heard from Song Hia of the NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity and Ethan Lo of the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation who demoed the NYC Benefits Platform Screening API which provides machine-readable calculations and criteria for benefits screening that power the ACCESS NYC screening questionnaire. This makes it easier for NYC residents to discover multiple benefits they may be eligible for. The City is now extending the API to support the new MyCity platform, a one-stop shop for all services and benefits.
Unofficial calculator allowing users to see if they may be eligible for Medicaid, CHIP, or savings on health insurance. The calculator can be embedded on other websites.
At Rules as Code Demo Day Executive Director Zareena Mayn and Chief Technology Officer Dize Hacioglu of mRelief demoed the code for their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility screener. mRelief is a women-led team that provides a web-based and text message-based SNAP eligibility screener to all 53 states and territories that participate in SNAP. They demonstrated how they have modularized their code to host federal program rules and state-specific rules.
