PolicyEngine / PolicyEngine/microcosm

Add county-crosswalked FNS SNAP data as a second congressional-district benchmark

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Python
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Description

Problem

CD-level SNAP validation currently has one lens: ACS S2201 district household estimates (#240, PR #241) — a survey estimate with its own sampling error. Calibrating or validating against a single noisy benchmark launders that noise into confident-looking district results.

Proposal

USDA FNS publishes county-level SNAP participation and issuance (bi-annual). Population-weighted county→CD crosswalk (Census blocks or MCDC geocorr) yields an administrative district benchmark independent of ACS sampling error.

  1. Ledger-side: ingest the FNS county bi-annual file as a source package
  2. Crosswalk counties to current-vintage CDs (the #277 block ladder / #205 vintage translation machinery is directly reusable)
  3. Add as a second validation_only family beside snap_local_proxy
  4. Promotion rule: CD SNAP targets stay validation-only until the two independent benchmarks corroborate each other district-by-district; divergence localizes either thin raw support or a real modeling gap

Context

From the SNAP research readout follow-ups: congressional-district SNAP results should remain exploratory until independently benchmarked. This issue defines what 'independently benchmarked' means concretely.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading the existing ACS district benchmark from #240 and PR #241, then inspect the #277 block ladder and #205 vintage translation machinery for reusable crosswalk logic. Confirm how source packages and validation_only families are represented before defining the FNS county-file path. Done means the county-crosswalked benchmark is ingested, compared district-by-district with snap_local_proxy, and remains validation-only until corroboration.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
data-engineering
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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