Where is all the work on benefit reduction rates?

[martinholmer]

@Amy-Xu, There is a Tax-Calculator issue about adding benefit reduction rates, but I can't seem to find any information about those estimates in the C-TAM repository. So, for example, where are the benefit reduction rates estimated for the SNAP program or for veterans' benefits?

[Amy-Xu]

Martin, sorry about the confusion. So far we have estimated the rates for three programs (SSI, SNAP and Old-Age Insurance), because these three have their benefits tied to income. Veteran's benefits, in contrary to the three programs, depend almost solely on the veteran status; thus we assume the rate is zero for everyone.

The summary for each program's rate can be found in the general documentation:

• master branch version

• latest version: PR Update C-TAM documentation #52

SNAP has a very simple imputation so it is only included in the general doc, but SSI has its own folder here and Social Security here.

[martinholmer]

@Amy-Xu said:

The summary for each program's rate can be found in the general documentation:

• master branch version

• latest version: PR Update C-TAM documentation #52

The documentation pdf file on the master branch (C-TAM 0.1.2) is dated April 2017. As search for MTR produced no hits.

The documentation pdf file in PR #52 (C-TAM 0.1.3) is dated September 2017 and it does have information about estimating benefit MTRs.

Is there any reason you have not merged PR #52? It has been open since late September 2017 and has not been revised since then. What are you waiting for? With C-TAM results starting to be in Tax-Calculator, the C-TAM documentation needs to be complete and up-to-date.

[Amy-Xu]

@martinholmer asked:

Is there any reason you have not merged PR #52? It has been open since late September 2017 and has not been revised since then. What are you waiting for?

I was hoping for a more thorough review before merging. The PR's updates have been review by Dan and AEI's editing team. Matt gave a first round review last October, but later in the year other priorities squeezed everyone's schedule. So the second round has not been finished yet.

I realized a lot of terms we used may or may not be clear to new comers who're not familiar with this project. If by any chance you have a bit time to read this document, I would very appreciate your feedback.

[Amy-Xu]

Thanks to Martin for the questions here. Please let me know if you have follow up questions on this issue. Closing this one now.