Assessing the potential impacts of innovative new policy proposals on poverty in the United States

Abstract

This article provides estimates of the potential anti-poverty impacts of eight proposals presented in this double issue of RSF. Using the 2016 Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey and the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics' Supplemental Poverty Measure, we first discuss the simulation approach taken for each proposal and then provide a consistent set of poverty estimates across proposals that include reductions in the poverty and deep poverty rates and the poverty gap; demographic differences; and net direct government costs. Anti-poverty impacts are largest for the most costly proposals, but less costly and more targeted proposals still have substantial potential impacts for key subgroups.