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The Future of the
-
SURVEY OF
INCOME AND
PROGRAM
PARTICI RATION
Constance F. Citro and Graham Kalton, Editors
Panel to Evaluate the
Survey of Income and Program Participation
Committee on National Statistics
Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
National Research Council
National Academy Press
Washington, D.C. 1993
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board
of the National Research Council' whose members are drawn from the councils of the National
Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences
and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures
approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of
Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of dis-
tinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance
of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the
charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to
advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Frank Press is president
of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the
National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is
autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National
Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National
Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs,
encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers.
Dr. Robert M. White is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to
secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy
matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given
to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the
federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research,
and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916
to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of
furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with
general policies detained by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating
agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in
providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communi-
ties. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr.
Frank Press and Dr. Robert M. White are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the
National Research Council.
The project that is the subject of this report was supported by funds from the Bureau of the
Census, U.S. Department of Commerce.
Copyright 1993 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 92-62584
International Standard Book Number 0-309-04795-1
Additional copies of this report are available from:
National Academy Press
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20418
B044
Printed in the United States of America
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PANEL TO EVALUATE THE SURVEY OF INCOME
AND PROGRAM PARTICIPATION
GRAHAM KALTON (Chair), Westat, Inc., Rockville, Md.
PAUL P. BIEMER, Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle
Park, N.C.
GORDON J. BRACKSTONE, Statistics Canada, Ottawa
CLIFFORD C. CLOGG, Departments of Sociology and Statistics,
Pennsylvania State University
MARTIN H. DAVID, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin
GREG J. DUNCAN, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
RALPH E. FOLSOM, Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park,
N.C.
ROBERT M. HAWSER, Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin
V. JOSEPH HOTZ, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies,
University of Chicago
RANDALL J. OLSEN, Center for Human Resource Research, Ohio State
University
PATRICIA RUGGLES, The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.
TERENCE P. SPEED, Department of Statistics, University of California,
Berkeley
CONSTANCE F. CITRO, Study Director
AGNES E. GASKIN, Senior Project Assistant
*Served until December 1991
. . .
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COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS
1991-1992
BURTON lI. SINGER (Chair), Department of Epidemiology and Public
Health, Yale University
NORMAN M. BRADBURN, National Opinion Research Center,
University of Chicago
MARTIN H. DAVID, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin
ANGUS S. DEATON, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
Intemational Affairs, Princeton University
NOREEN GOLDMAN, Office of Population Research, Princeton
University
LOUIS GORDON, Department of Mathematics, University of Southern
California
JOEL B. GREENHOUSE, Department of Statistics, Carnegie Mellon
University
ROBERT M. HAWSER, Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin
GRAHAM KALTON, Westat, Inc., Rockville, Md.
WILLIAM A. MORRILL, Mathtech, Inc., Princeton, N.J.
JANET L. NORWOOD, The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.
DOROTHY P. RICE, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences,
School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco
JOHN E. ROLPH, The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif.
DONALD B. RUBIN, Department of Statistics, Harvard University
MIRON L. STRAP, Director
SUSANNA McFARLAND, Administrative Assistant
V
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Acknowledgments
The Panel to Evaluate the Survey of Income and Program Participation
(SIPP) wishes to thank the many people who made possible the preparation
of this report.
The staff of the Bureau of the Census were extremely helpful in provid-
ing information about SIPP, in briefing the panel about developments at the
Census Bureau in a wide range of areas, and in responding to numerous
queries and comments from the panel. We particularly thank Daniel Kasprzyk,
formerly coordinator of SIPP research at the Census Bureau and now with
the National Center for Education Statistics, who served as the panel's project
officer from spring 1990 to spring 1991 and contributed most generously of
his time and knowledge in every aspect of the panel's work, and John
McNeil and Enrique Lamas of the Census Bureau's Housing and Household
Economic Statistics Division, who subsequently served as liaisons to the
panel and were most helpful in responding to requests for information.
There are many other Census Bureau staff members who made informa-
tive presentations to the panel or met with panel members and staff to share
their knowledge: William Butz, Associate Director for Demographic Pro-
grams; staff of the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division,
including Daniel Weinberg, chief, Charles Nelson, assistant chief, Gordon
Green, former assistant chief, and John Coder, special assistant; staff of the
Demographic Surveys Division, including Sherry Courtland, chief, Barry
Fink, assistant chief, Chester Bowie, former income surveys branch chief,
and Donald Fischer, income surveys branch chief; staff of the Demographic
v
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Vl
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Statistical Methods Division, including Preston Jay Waite, chief, Rajendra
Singh, income branch chief, and Vicki Huggins, now with the Economic
Statistical Methods Division; staff of the Population Division, including
Arthur Norton, assistant chief, and David McMillen, now on the staff of the
Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs; Gerald Gates of the Program
and Policy Development Office; and Kent Marquis of the Center for Survey
Methods Research.
Policy analysts in federal agencies that use SIPP shared their knowl-
edge and insights with the panel about SIPP's role: Christine Schmidt-
Bayne, formerly with the Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, and now with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Ser-
vices; Michele Adler and Joan Turek-Brezina of the Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Hu-
man Services; Susan Grad and Denton Vaughan of the Office of Research
and Statistics of the Social Security Administration; and Roberton Williams
of the Congressional Budget Office. The panel also benefited from the
views expressed in interviews conducted with a large number of analysts in
federal agencies as part of the Committee on National Statistics's interim
assessment of SIPP (see Committee on National Statistics, 1989:App. A).
The participants in the Conference on the Future of SIPP convened by
the panel in Washington, D.C., in April 1991 contributed a wealth of knowl-
edge about SIPP's usefulness for research and analysis and suggestions to
improve its relevance and utility in the future. Appendix B lists the topics
covered at the conference and the paper authors and invited discussants,
who included social science researchers and policy analysts.
The panel greatly appreciates the work of Timothy Smeeding of Syra-
cuse University, who prepared a stimulating paper on priorities for improv-
ing income data from surveys and administrative records. Courtenay Slater
of Slater-Hall Information Products and Harold Watts of Columbia Univer-
sity contributed useful commentaries on Smeeding's paper.
The panel also benefited from the deliberations and views of other
advisory bodies for SIPP, including the Working Group on Technical As-
pects of SIPP of the Survey Research Methods Section of the American
Statistical Association and the SIPP Committee of the Association of Public
Data Users (APDU). The papers from the conferences sponsored by the
SIPP Committee of the Social Science Research Council (see David, 1983,
1985b; Bureau of the Census, 1988a) provided useful material for evaluat-
ing SIPP and considering ways to enhance its usefulness in the future.
Other individuals who made helpful presentations or provided useful
comments include Pat Doyle, chair of the APDU SIPP committee, formerly
with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., and now with the Agency for Health
Care Policy and Research of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services; Thomas Jabine, statistical consultant and principal author of the
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
. .
Vll
SIPP Quality Profile; David Cantor, principal investigator for cognitive re-
search on the SIPP questionnaire at Westat, Inc.; Alan Tupek, formerly with
the Bureau of Labor Statistics and now with the Science Resources Studies
Division of the National Science Foundation; James Lepkowski of the Sur-
vey Research Center of the University of Michigan; and James Smith and
Joseph Waksberg of Westat, Inc.
The panel is grateful to Eugenia Grohman, Associate Director for Re-
ports of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education,
for her fine technical editorial work, which contributed greatly to the read-
ability of this report. We also thank members of the Committee-on National
Statistics who proffered valuable comments on a draft of the panel's report.
Agnes Gaskin served very ably as the senior project assistant for the
panel. She made excellent logistical arrangements for the large number of
plenary and working group meetings held by the panel and for the Confer-
ence on the Future of SIPP. She also performed admirably in preparing the
final manuscript of the report.
A special acknowledgment is due to Connie Citro for her excellent
work as the panel's study director. She had primary responsibility for orga-
nizing the panel's activities and drafting the final report. She demonstrated
exceptional skills in synthesizing the panel's views and producing a coher-
ent document, she readily appreciated different viewpoints on an issue, and
she patiently and good-humoredly rewrote parts of the draft to meet con-
cerns of panel members. In addition to all of this, she made many signifi-
cant contributions to the panel's discussions on the basis of her extensive
knowledge of SIPP. On behalf of the panel and personally, I thank Connie
for her unstinting efforts and outstanding work. She contributed not only to
the quality of the final report, but also to panel members' enjoyment and
satisfaction with the enterprise.
Finally, I thank the panel members for their generous contributions of
time and expert knowledge. Several of them participated in working ses-
sions that developed detailed specifications for tabulations on income and
program participation from SIPP. Others conducted on-site evaluations of
data collection and processing systems and the proposed plan to oversample
low-income groups in SIPP. Many of them prepared useful background
papers or sets of working notes. Overall, this was an exceptionally hard-
working group of people, who conducted a wide-ranging and very thorough
assessment of the SIPP program. It has been a genuine pleasure to work
with them.
Graham Kalton, Chair
Panel to Evaluate the Survey of
Income and Program Participation
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Contents
TABLES AND FIGURES
SUMMARY
Goals, 2
Survey Design, 3
Data Collection and Processing, 4
Data Products and Their Use, 4
Methodological Research and Evaluation, 5
Management and Oversight, 6
Recommendations, 6
1 INTRODUCTION
SIPP in Brief, 13
SIPP to Date, 16
Looking, to the Future, 22
GOALS FOR SIPP
The Development of SIPP and Its Goals, 26
Views About SIPP's Goals, 33
Recommendation, 41
3 ACHIEVING SIPP's GOALS
Improving Data on Income and Other
Economic Resources, 43
IX
. .
X11
13
26
43
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x
CONTENTS
Improving Data on Program Eligibility
and Participation, 73
Topical Modules, 80
SIPP and the March CPS, 85
SIPP and Administrative Records, 87
SURVEY DESIGN
Major Design Elements and Alternatives, 91
Oversampling in SIPP, 1 19
Following Rules, 128
DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING
Current Operations, 131
Computer-Assisted Interviewing, 138
Database Management, 147
Investing in the Data Processing Staff, 152
Transition to a CAPI/Database Management
System for SIPP, 153
6 DATA PRODUCTS AND THEIR USE
Publications, 158
Measurement Issues for Core Statistics, 169
Microdata Products, 189
Documentation and Services for Users, 195
7 METHODOLOGICAL RESEARCH AND EVALUATION
Research to Date, 203
Redesign of SIPP, 206
Continuous Error Monitoring, 217
Cognitive Research, 220
8 MANAGEMENT AND OVERSIGHT
Management Structure, 228
Oversight, 236
REFERENCES
APPENDIX A: USE OF SIPP FOR RESEARCH AND
POLICY ANALYSIS
APPENDIX B: CONFERENCE ON THE FUTURE OF SIPP:
TOPICS AND PARTICIPANTS
APPENDIX C: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PANEL
MEMBERS AND STAFF
INDEX
91
131
158
202
227
245
265
268
270
277
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Tables and Figures
TABLES
3-7
3-1 Nonasset Income Sources in SIPP, 46
3-2 Assets and Asset Income Sources in SIPP, 49
3-3 Nonresponse Rates for Selected SIPP Core Items, by Panel, 51
3-4 Item Nonresponse Rates in the 1984 SIPP and March 1985 CPS, by
Selected Income Types, 52
3-5 Item Nonresponse Rates in the 1985 SIPP and March 1986 CPS, by
Selected Income Types, 53
3-6 1984 SIPP and March 1985 CPS Estimates of Income Aggregates,
for 1984 by Type, 54
1984 SIPP and March 1984 CPS Estimates as Percentages of
Independent Estimates of Income Recipients and Amounts for
Selected Income Types, 55
3-8 Comparisons of SIPP 1984 State Unemployment Compensation
Estimates with Estimates Derived from Independent Sources, 57
3-9 Item Nonresponse Rates for Asset Amounts in SIPP and the Income
Survey Development Program (ISDP) 1979 Research Panel, 58
3-10 1984 SIPP, March CPS and Independent Estimates of Aggregate
Interest and Dividend Income, 1983- 1984 and Calendar 1984, 59
3-11 Asset and Liability Estimates from SIPP and the Federal Reserve
Board (FRB) Balance Sheet Data for the Household Sector, for 1984
and 1988, 60
Xl
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. .
xI!
TABLES AND FIGURES
Coverage Ratios for SIPP and CPS Samples: March 1984 and
March 1986, 62
Topical Modules in SIPP, 1984-1990 Panels, 81
Cumulative Household Noninterview and Sample Loss Rates, 1984
1988 and 1990 SIPP Panels, 100
4-2 Estimated Minimum Sample Sizes for Subgroups of Policy Interest
from SIPP Panels of Different Sizes, 113
4-3 Reference Periods for Rotation Groups for SIPP Redesign, 115
SIPP Budget, by Major Function, Fiscal 1992, 132
Suggested Schedule for Implementing the SIPP Redesign arid Use of
CAPI/DBMS Technology, Including a Large Dress Rehearsal Panel
in 1995, 155
6-1 SIPP Reports Published in P-70 Series Through 1991 by U.S.
Bureau of the Census, 160
A-1 Papers Produced from SIPP and NLS Data Over a 6-Year
Period, 266
A-2 Dissertations Produced from SIPP, PSID, and NLS Over a 6-Year
Period, 267
A-3 SIPP Papers Issued in 1989-1990 by Topic Areas, 267
FIGURES
6-1 Contents of SIPP Quarterly Reports, Series P-70, Nos. 1-6, 162
SIPP Reports in P-70 Series Published in 1992, 167
Census Bureau Organization Chart, 229
