National Experimental Wellbeing Statistics - Version 1

C. Bee, Joshua Mitchell, Nikolas Mittag, Jonathan Rothbaum, Carl Sanders, Lawrence Schmidt and Matthew Unrath

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: This is the U.S. Census Bureau’s first release of the National Experimental Wellbeing Statistics (NEWS) project. The NEWS project aims to produce the best possible estimates of income and poverty given all available survey and administrative data. We link survey, decennial census, administrative, and third-party data to address measurement error in income and poverty statistics. We estimate improved (pre-tax money) income and poverty statistics for 2018 by addressing several possible sources of bias documented in prior research. We address biases from 1) unit nonresponse through improved weights, 2) missing income information in both survey and administrative data through improved imputation, and 3) misreporting by combining or replacing survey responses with administrative information. Reducing survey error substantially affects key measures of well-being: We estimate median household income is 6.3 percent higher than in survey estimates, and poverty is 1.1 percentage points lower. These changes are driven by subpopulations for which survey error is particularly relevant. For house holders aged 65 and over, median household income is 27.3 percent higher and poverty is 3.3 percentage points lower than in survey estimates. We do not find a significant impact on median household income for householders under 65 or on child poverty. Finally, we discuss plans for future releases: addressing other potential sources of bias, releasing additional years of statistics, extending the income concepts measured, and including smaller geographies such as state and county.

Pages: 120 pages
Date: 2023-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2023/adrm/ces/CES-WP-23-04.pdf First version, 2023 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:23-04

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dawn Anderson ().