Sponsor
John Neely Kennedy
Senator · R-LA
Senator · R-LA
The bill delivers more comprehensive, standardized income, poverty, and inequality statistics that can improve policymaking and program targeting, but it increases privacy risks, administrative costs, and the chance that changed income definitions will be misinterpreted or affect eligibility and public perception.
Federal agencies, Congress, researchers, and universities will get reconciled, standardized, and historically benchmarked income, poverty, and inequality statistics (including taxes and transfers) within a year, improving policy design, evaluation, and public-analysis.
Low-income households, retirees, and employees will have incomes measured more comprehensively because in-kind benefits (SNAP, school meals, WIC, housing vouchers, LIHEAP), refundable tax credits, and employer-provided retirement/health benefits are explicitly counted, improving targeting and understanding of need.
Tax policymakers and revenue analysts will receive clearer, reconciled definitions of taxes and refundable credits (income, payroll, sales, corporate, refundable credits), improving tax policy analysis and revenue estimation inputs.
Taxpayers and survey respondents face heightened privacy and confidentiality risks because the Census and other agencies may access and share IRS return information and other cross-agency data to build the new measures.
Federal, state, and local governments (and ultimately taxpayers) will face increased administrative burdens and costs to locate, augment, reconcile, and provide diverse data (including meeting 180-day requests), raising operational expenses and staffing demands.
Redefining income components (e.g., treating interest, dividends, capital gains, and employer-paid benefits as 'earned income' and labeling refundable credit refunds as 'transfer payments') risks misinterpretation or political misuse of income statistics and could complicate program analyses.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Mandates a new Census poverty/income measure using a CBO method that counts income broadly (earnings, benefits, investment gains, transfers minus taxes) and requires data sharing and historical recalculation.
Introduced February 2, 2026 by John Neely Kennedy · Last progress February 2, 2026
Creates a new, additional poverty and income measurement that the Census Bureau must put in place within one year using a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reconciliation method. The new measure defines individual income as earned income plus government transfer payments minus taxes, requires federal (and potentially state and local) agencies to supply data on request, and directs the Census Bureau to publish updated historical and future statistics and two reports on data quality and measurement. The law sets broad definitions for earned income (including wages, self-employment income, employer-paid benefits, investment income, realized capital gains, and some in-kind compensation), requires adjustment and reconciliation to independent benchmarks, applies existing Census confidentiality protections, and creates criminal penalties for willful unauthorized disclosure of restricted survey data.