Microsimulation models for social welfare programs: An evaluation

A scene in Washington, D.C.-It is mid-1988. In the quarters of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) at the foot of Capitol Hill, exhausted analysts are working overtime to prepare final estimates of the budgetary and programmatic effects of what will become the Family Support Act (FSA) of 1988. . . . [In] the process of developing the final form of the FSA . . . CBO analysts have prepared cost estimates for half a dozen major bills, each of which contains as many as 50 separate provisions. They have also prepared estimates of which population groups would be affected by the various bills and whether those groups would gain or lose under each proposal, in comparison with alternative proposals and with current law. . . . To prepare their estimates for the FSA, the CBO analysts have called on a wide variety of data sources and data processing tools [including] microsimulation models that process large, nationally representative samples of families as if they were applying to the local welfare office for benefits.