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Add the spm-calculator 1.0 announcement and the 2025 SPM poverty prediction posts - #1202

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@MaxGhenis

@MaxGhenis MaxGhenis commented Sep 11, 2026 •

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Two research posts for the SPM calculator launch, timed to the Census release of the 2025 poverty numbers (September 15, 10 am ET).

  • introducing-spm-calculator.md: the package (PyPI 1.0.0), the browser calculator at policyengine.org/us/spm-calculator, the projection method, the August 7 pre-committed nowcast graded against BLS's August 24 thresholds (1.17% MAE vs 2.58% for CPI-U aging), the July BLS correction and the package's own earlier errors, and what the calculator does not do.
  • 2025-spm-poverty-prediction.md: the prediction registered on September 11 in spm-threshold-paper (data/predictions/2025-spm-poverty-rates-2026-09-11.json, with OpenTimestamps proof): 13.2% all people, 14.3% children, 14.6% age 65 and over, built as the Census 2024 corrected rate plus the model's 2024-to-2025 change. Includes how the model calculates SPM poverty and what it does not do. A rerun on policyengine-us 2.2.1 with the certified population release reproduced the all-people and child changes to within 0.001 pp before the release.

Every claim in both posts was checked against code and primary sources (verification report in the rollout directory); the items it flagged are applied.

Publish checklist:

  1. Merge Document how PolicyEngine US calculates SPM poverty policyengine-us#9438 first. The prediction post links docs-quarto/methodology/spm-poverty.qmd on main, which 404s until that PR merges.
  2. Publishing before 10 am ET keeps the prediction post pre-release as written. After the release, a dated results section (published 2025 rates, prediction minus published, per group) and an updated chart will be added in a follow-up commit.
  3. Both posts are dated 2026-09-15 and tagged featured.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

…iction posts

Two US research posts: one introducing spm-calculator 1.0 (published
BLS thresholds through 2025, rolling CE and ACS projections to 2035,
the pre-committed nowcast evaluation, and what changed from the old
package) and one recording PolicyEngine's pre-committed prediction for
the 2025 SPM poverty rate with how the model builds the number and its
current limitations.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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…rified fixes

Prediction post: the opener names the 10 am ET release; the corrected 2024
anchors cite Table 3 of SEHSD-WP2026-17 (13.0 / 13.4 / 15.1, verified against
the paper); the legacy model is described as the one serving policyengine.org
today, since the canonical runtime has not been promoted; the unverified
"most of the difference is threshold growth" sentence is cut; the rerun
paragraph reports the result (policyengine-us 2.2.1 on the certified release
reproduced the all-people and child changes to within 0.001 pp, receipt in the
rollout directory), and the closing section no longer says "Tuesday".

Announcement post: PyPI link goes to the project page; the cross-link no longer
says "Tuesday's". Both posts dated 2026-09-15; the prediction title drops
"Tuesday's" and the announcement title says "any US area, 2022 through 2035".

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
MaxGhenis and others added 2 commits September 15, 2026 10:06
Census (P60-290, 10 am ET September 15): SPM 13.1% all people (+0.1 pp), 13.4%
children (-0.1), 15.4% age 65 and over (+0.2); renters 24.0% (+0.8), owners with
mortgage 6.0% (-0.2), owners without 11.9% (unchanged). Registered prediction
+0.2 / +0.9 / -0.5 misses by +0.1 / +1.0 / -0.7; prior model -0.5 / -0.2 / -1.2
misses by -0.6 / -0.1 / -1.4. The opener states the result, a results section
carries the table, the chart adds the Census 2025 markers, and the title and
description say the prediction is graded.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@MaxGhenis

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The graded-prediction post now lives in #1214 (base main, only its own files), with the grade record and analysis code in PolicyEngine/spm-threshold-paper#10. This PR still carries the spm-calculator announcement; two things to carry over when it is picked back up:

Merge order for the SPM posts: spm-threshold-paper#10 → #1209 → #1208 → #1214.

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