# Introduction

The PolicyEngine Python package serves as a unified framework for conducting comprehensive policy simulations and analyses across different countries. Building on the foundation of [OpenFisca-Core](https://github.com/openfisca/openfisca-core), PolicyEngine provides a consistent API that supports diverse functionalities such as microsimulations, individual household analyses, and cross-country comparisons. 

PolicyEngine Core enables users to:

* Simulate and analyze various tax-benefit policies with tailored models for each country.
* Use two main simulation classes—Microsimulation for broad-scale microdata simulations and IndividualSim for detailed single household calculations.
* Generate interactive and visually appealing charts using Plotly, facilitating budgetary breakdowns, income decile analyses, poverty breakdowns by demographic groups, and impacts on income inequality.
* Reproduce visualizations from the PolicyEngine web interface programmatically, allowing for in-depth analysis and customization.

The package aims to streamline policy evaluation by offering a user-friendly API, comprehensive documentation, and tools for generating insightful visual representations of simulation results.