Cap all state TANF benefit formulas to prevent negative income inflation#7434
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MaxGhenis merged 1 commit intoPolicyEngine:mainfrom Feb 19, 2026
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…ome from inflating benefits Fix NC TANF household size bare .sum() bug and add min_() caps to 38 state programs (AL, AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, HI, IA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TX, UT, VT, WV, WY). Previously, negative countable income could produce benefits exceeding $1M per household, inflating total TANF microsimulation from ~$9B target to $17.9T. With this fix, max benefit per household is $25,084 (CA CalWORKs) and total TANF is ~$32B pre-takeup. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Feb 20, 2026
The upstream merge (d34300d) accidentally dropped the Work Expense Reimbursement (WER) logic while picking up the min_ cap from PolicyEngine#7434. This restores the $50/month WER bonus for pre-2020 families with earned income and keeps the negative-income cap. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Summary
nc_tanf_household_sizebare.sum()bug (summed across entire population instead of within SPM unit)min_(benefit, payment_standard)caps to 38 state TANF programs to prevent negative countable income from inflating benefits above the maximum paymentImpact
States fixed
Standard naming (28): AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, HI, IL, IN, KS, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NV, NY, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TX, VT, WV, WY
Non-standard naming (13): AK (ATAP), AR (TEA), CT (TFA), FL (TCA), IA (FIP), LA (FITAP), MA (TAFDC), MD (TCA), MI (FIP), MN (MFIP), NE (ADC), NH (FANF), NJ (WFNJ), NM (Works), OH (OWF), RI (Works), UT (FEP), VT (Reach Up), WV (Works), WY (POWER)
Already safe (no fix needed): GA, WA, VA, DE, ME, ID, KY, TN, WI
Test plan
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