Poverty and Income Security

Numerous federal programs and policies aim to reduce poverty, alleviate some of poverty's adverse consequences, enhance the security of people’s incomes, and affect the distribution of income and economic well-being. CBO provides cost estimates for legislative proposals related to those programs and policies. The agency also conducts in-depth analyses of the budgetary and other effects of those programs and policies and of options for changing them. (A separate page on Social Security provides additional information on CBO’s work in that area.)