Using the CPS ASEC for Demographic Research: Improvements to the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement and Implications for Research on Families and
Economic Well-being

Collected annually, the CPS Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) is one of the most widely used socioeconomic surveys and provides detailed information on income, work experience, poverty, health insurance coverage, and living arrangements in the U.S. The primary goal of the workshop is to share with researchers and potential data users recent changes incorporated in the CPS ASEC survey design and methods to improve data quality and to discuss the implications of these improvements for research on families and economic wellbeing in the U.S. These changes include more detailed questions concerning income and assets – specifically retirement income -- and health insurance coverage under the ACA introduced in 2014, as well as changes in how the Census Bureau processes family relationships, including those for same-sex couples, and improvements in imputation methods for both item and unit non-response. These latter changes will be fully implemented with the release of the 2019 CPS ASEC in September 2019.

This workshop will:
(1) Review changes to the CPS Annual Social and Economic Supplement, including modifications to questionnaires, as well as processing improvements to income, health insurance, and family relationship variables and the availability of additional health insurance measures;
(2) Demonstrate implications of improvements in CPS ASEC design and processing on income and poverty estimates, health insurance coverage rates, and measures of family relationships.
(3) Provide examples of how CPS ASEC data can be used to explore a wide range of research questions related to demographic change, economic well-being, poverty and inequality, health insurance, and family and household structure, including same-sex couples, family complexity and family formation;
(4) Introduce a new tool developed by the Census Bureau to access CPS ASEC data.

Presenters & Discussants:

C. Adam Bee, U.S. Census Bureau
Edward Berchick, U.S. Census Bureau
Kathleen Call, University of Minnesota
​John Czaika, Mathematica
​Ashley Edwards, U.S. Census Bureau
Liana Fox, U.S. Census Bureau
​Benjamin Gurrentz, U.S. Census Burea
​Heide Jackson, U.S. Census Bureau
Sheela Kennedy, University of Michigan
Rose Kreider, U.S. Census Bureau
Laryssa Mykyta, U.S. Census Bureau
​Jonathan Rothbaum, U.S. Census Bureau