Sponsors
Introduced February 2, 2026 by John Neely Kennedy · Last progress February 2, 2026
The bill modernizes and standardizes income, tax, and poverty statistics by expanding data sources and definitions to improve accuracy and comparability, but it increases privacy risks, administrative costs, and could change program eligibility by counting more forms of compensation as income.
Researchers, policymakers, and the public get standardized, CBO-based poverty and income measures with historical series recalculated for comparability, improving trend analysis and policy design.
Household income and tax statistics will be more comprehensive and accurate by incorporating multiple data sources (BLS, BEA, IRS) and counting non-cash compensation (employer health insurance, retirement accruals, in-kind pay), giving a fuller picture of resources for targeting and analysis.
Refundable tax credits (EITC, Child Tax Credit) will be explicitly classified as government transfer payments, clarifying how such refunds are counted in income and transfer totals for public statistics.
Linking and reconciling IRS, program, and private data raises substantial privacy and confidentiality risks for individuals’ financial and benefit information.
Treating employer-paid health insurance, retirement accruals, realized capital gains and other imputed income as part of household income could reduce eligibility for means-tested programs for some households and raise reported income metrics, affecting benefit access and public perceptions of inequality.
Implementing the new methods may impose significant administrative costs and burdens — Census purchases or survey augmentation costs, state and local responses to data requests within 180 days, and new processes to reclassify credits — which could divert resources from other functions or increase costs for taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Requires the Census to adopt a CBO-based income measure (earned income + transfers − taxes), implement it in 1 year, recalculate historical data, and obtain agency data under confidentiality rules.
Creates a new official income/poverty measurement method the Census Bureau must adopt within one year that defines individual income as earned income plus government transfer payments minus taxes, using the methodology in a Congressional Budget Office report. It requires federal, state, and local administering agencies to provide requested data to the Census (with deadlines), directs the Census to recalculate and publish historical series using the new method, permits use of many data sources and survey augmentation, and applies statutory confidentiality protections and criminal penalties to personally identifiable information obtained under the Act. The Act also defines key terms and sets rules for how income components are measured (including broad definitions of earned income and government transfer payments), requires reconciliation of reported income to independent benchmarks, mandates reports to Congress on implementation and measurement, and restricts sensitive data access while imposing penalties for unlawful disclosure.