Explaining Analytical Methods
- Working Paper
Key Methods That CBO Used to Estimate the Macroeconomic Effects of the 2025 Reconciliation Act: Working Paper 2026-01
The 2025 reconciliation act included a wide range of provisions that affect policies governing federal revenues and spending. This working paper describes the key methods that CBO used to estimate the law's macroeconomic effects.
- Presentation
Medicaid State-Directed Payments: An Update on CBO's Modeling
Presentation by Cyrus Ekland, Claire Hou, Aaron Pervin, and Rajan Topiwala, analysts in CBO's Budget Analysis and Health Analysis Divisions, at a meeting of CBO's Panel of Health Advisers.
- Presentation
Dynamic Analysis of Changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in H.R. 1
This slide deck describes the main mechanisms in CBO's dynamic analysis of H.R. 1, explains the changes to SNAP, and explains the macroeconomic effects and budgetary feedback of those changes.
- Report
Unemployment Insurance: Budgetary History and Projections
CBO examines trends in revenues and outlays associated with unemployment insurance and provides information about how CBO treats that program in its baseline projections and cost estimates.
- Report
Reconciling the Official Poverty Measure and CBO’s Distributional Analysis of Household Income
CBO examines how its method for analyzing the distribution of household income differs from the Census Bureau’s method for calculating the official poverty measure. The most important differences stem from what each method counts as income.
- Interactive
How Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage Could Affect Employment and Family Income
This interactive tool, updated in January 30, 2024, allows users to explore how various policies to increase the federal minimum wage would affect earnings, employment, family income, and poverty.
- Presentation
Exploring the Effects of Medicaid During Childhood on the Economy and the Budget
Presentation by Elizabeth Ash, William Carrington, Rebecca Heller, and Grace Hwang of CBO’s Labor, Income Security, and Long-Term Analysis and Health Analysis divisions to the Children’s Health Group, American Academy of Pediatrics.
- Working Paper
Exploring the Effects of Medicaid During Childhood on the Economy and the Budget: Working Paper 2023-07
On a present-value basis, CBO estimates that long-term fiscal effects of Medicaid spending on children could offset half or more of the program’s initial outlays, depending on sets of reasonable parameter values.
- Report
Federal Budgetary Effects of the Activities of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation
CBO estimates that the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation’s (CMMI’s) activities increased federal spending between 2011 and 2020 and will also increase it from 2021 to 2030. In 2010, CBO projected that CMMI would produce savings.
- Report
The Medicare and Medicaid Improvement Funds: Budgetary History and Projections
CBO describes features of the Medicare and Medicaid improvement funds and how the funds are accounted for in CBO’s baseline and cost estimates.