Current Population Survey (CPS)
The principal labor force survey, providing income, poverty, and health insurance coverage estimates.
One table with one row per sampled household, a second table with one row per family within each sampled household, and a third table with one row per individual within each of those families.
A complex sample designed to generalize to the civilian non-institutional population of the US.
Released annually since 1998, linkable to the Basic Monthly releases.
Administered jointly by the US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Please skim before you begin:
Current Population Survey 2024 Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement
A haiku regarding this microdata:
# jobs robbed by robot
# luddite rebellion looming
# blue, due to red pill
Download, Import, Preparation
Download and unzip the 2024 file:
library(httr)
<- tempfile()
tf
<- "https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/datasets/2024/march/asecpub24sas.zip"
this_url
GET( this_url , write_disk( tf ) , progress() )
<- unzip( tf , exdir = tempdir() ) unzipped_files
Import all four files:
library(haven)
<- lapply( unzipped_files , read_sas )
four_tbl
<- lapply( four_tbl , data.frame )
four_df
<- lapply( four_df , function( w ){ names( w ) <- tolower( names( w ) ) ; w } )
four_df
<- four_df[[ grep( 'hhpub' , basename( unzipped_files ) ) ]]
household_df <- four_df[[ grep( 'ffpub' , basename( unzipped_files ) ) ]]
family_df <- four_df[[ grep( 'pppub' , basename( unzipped_files ) ) ]]
person_df <- four_df[[ grep( 'repwgt' , basename( unzipped_files ) ) ]] repwgts_df
Divide weights:
'hsup_wgt' ] <- household_df[ , 'hsup_wgt' ] / 100
household_df[ , 'fsup_wgt' ] <- family_df[ , 'fsup_wgt' ] / 100
family_df[ , for ( j in c( 'marsupwt' , 'a_ernlwt' , 'a_fnlwgt' ) ) person_df[ , j ] <- person_df[ , j ] / 100
Merge these four files:
names( family_df )[ names( family_df ) == 'fh_seq' ] <- 'h_seq'
names( person_df )[ names( person_df ) == 'ph_seq' ] <- 'h_seq'
names( person_df )[ names( person_df ) == 'phf_seq' ] <- 'ffpos'
<- merge( household_df , family_df )
hh_fm_df <- merge( hh_fm_df , person_df )
hh_fm_pr_df <- merge( hh_fm_pr_df , repwgts_df )
cps_df
stopifnot( nrow( cps_df ) == nrow( person_df ) )
Save Locally
Save the object at any point:
# cps_fn <- file.path( path.expand( "~" ) , "CPS" , "this_file.rds" )
# saveRDS( cps_df , file = cps_fn , compress = FALSE )
Load the same object:
# cps_df <- readRDS( cps_fn )
Survey Design Definition
Construct a complex sample survey design:
library(survey)
<-
cps_design svrepdesign(
weights = ~ marsupwt ,
repweights = "pwwgt[1-9]" ,
type = "Fay" ,
rho = ( 1 - 1 / sqrt( 4 ) ) ,
data = cps_df ,
combined.weights = TRUE ,
mse = TRUE
)
Variable Recoding
Add new columns to the data set:
<-
cps_design update(
cps_design ,
one = 1 ,
a_maritl =
factor(
a_maritl , labels =
c(
"married - civilian spouse present" ,
"married - AF spouse present" ,
"married - spouse absent" ,
"widowed" ,
"divorced" ,
"separated" ,
"never married"
)
) ,
state_name =
factor(
gestfips ,levels =
c(1L, 2L, 4L, 5L, 6L, 8L, 9L, 10L,
11L, 12L, 13L, 15L, 16L, 17L, 18L,
19L, 20L, 21L, 22L, 23L, 24L, 25L,
26L, 27L, 28L, 29L, 30L, 31L, 32L,
33L, 34L, 35L, 36L, 37L, 38L, 39L,
40L, 41L, 42L, 44L, 45L, 46L, 47L,
48L, 49L, 50L, 51L, 53L, 54L, 55L,
56L) ,labels =
c("Alabama", "Alaska", "Arizona", "Arkansas", "California",
"Colorado", "Connecticut", "Delaware", "District of Columbia",
"Florida", "Georgia", "Hawaii", "Idaho", "Illinois", "Indiana",
"Iowa", "Kansas", "Kentucky", "Louisiana", "Maine", "Maryland",
"Massachusetts", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Mississippi", "Missouri",
"Montana", "Nebraska", "Nevada", "New Hampshire", "New Jersey",
"New Mexico", "New York", "North Carolina", "North Dakota", "Ohio",
"Oklahoma", "Oregon", "Pennsylvania", "Rhode Island", "South Carolina",
"South Dakota", "Tennessee", "Texas", "Utah", "Vermont", "Virginia",
"Washington", "West Virginia", "Wisconsin", "Wyoming")
) ,
male = as.numeric( a_sex == 1 )
)
Analysis Examples with the survey
library
Unweighted Counts
Count the unweighted number of records in the survey sample, overall and by groups:
sum( weights( cps_design , "sampling" ) != 0 )
svyby( ~ one , ~ state_name , cps_design , unwtd.count )
Weighted Counts
Count the weighted size of the generalizable population, overall and by groups:
svytotal( ~ one , cps_design )
svyby( ~ one , ~ state_name , cps_design , svytotal )
Descriptive Statistics
Calculate the mean (average) of a linear variable, overall and by groups:
svymean( ~ ptotval , cps_design )
svyby( ~ ptotval , ~ state_name , cps_design , svymean )
Calculate the distribution of a categorical variable, overall and by groups:
svymean( ~ a_maritl , cps_design )
svyby( ~ a_maritl , ~ state_name , cps_design , svymean )
Calculate the sum of a linear variable, overall and by groups:
svytotal( ~ ptotval , cps_design )
svyby( ~ ptotval , ~ state_name , cps_design , svytotal )
Calculate the weighted sum of a categorical variable, overall and by groups:
svytotal( ~ a_maritl , cps_design )
svyby( ~ a_maritl , ~ state_name , cps_design , svytotal )
Calculate the median (50th percentile) of a linear variable, overall and by groups:
svyquantile( ~ ptotval , cps_design , 0.5 )
svyby(
~ ptotval ,
~ state_name ,
cps_design ,
svyquantile , 0.5 ,
ci = TRUE
)
Estimate a ratio:
svyratio(
numerator = ~ moop ,
denominator = ~ ptotval ,
cps_design )
Subsetting
Restrict the survey design to persons aged 18-64:
<- subset( cps_design , a_age %in% 18:64 ) sub_cps_design
Calculate the mean (average) of this subset:
svymean( ~ ptotval , sub_cps_design )
Measures of Uncertainty
Extract the coefficient, standard error, confidence interval, and coefficient of variation from any descriptive statistics function result, overall and by groups:
<- svymean( ~ ptotval , cps_design )
this_result
coef( this_result )
SE( this_result )
confint( this_result )
cv( this_result )
<-
grouped_result svyby(
~ ptotval ,
~ state_name ,
cps_design ,
svymean
)
coef( grouped_result )
SE( grouped_result )
confint( grouped_result )
cv( grouped_result )
Calculate the degrees of freedom of any survey design object:
degf( cps_design )
Calculate the complex sample survey-adjusted variance of any statistic:
svyvar( ~ ptotval , cps_design )
Include the complex sample design effect in the result for a specific statistic:
# SRS without replacement
svymean( ~ ptotval , cps_design , deff = TRUE )
# SRS with replacement
svymean( ~ ptotval , cps_design , deff = "replace" )
Compute confidence intervals for proportions using methods that may be more accurate near 0 and 1. See ?svyciprop
for alternatives:
svyciprop( ~ male , cps_design ,
method = "likelihood" )
Regression Models and Tests of Association
Perform a design-based t-test:
svyttest( ptotval ~ male , cps_design )
Perform a chi-squared test of association for survey data:
svychisq(
~ male + a_maritl ,
cps_design )
Perform a survey-weighted generalized linear model:
<-
glm_result svyglm(
~ male + a_maritl ,
ptotval
cps_design
)
summary( glm_result )
Replication Example
This example matches the count and share of individuals with health insurance in Table H-01:
<- svytotal( ~ as.numeric( cov == 1 ) , cps_design )
count_covered
stopifnot( round( coef( count_covered ) , -5 ) == 305200000 )
stopifnot(
round( coef( count_covered ) - confint( count_covered , level = 0.9 )[1] , -3 ) == 704000
)
<- svymean( ~ as.numeric( cov == 1 ) , subset( cps_design , cov > 0 ) )
share_covered
stopifnot( round( coef( share_covered ) , 3 ) == 0.920 )
stopifnot(
round( coef( share_covered ) - confint( share_covered , level = 0.9 )[1] , 3 ) == 0.002
)
Poverty and Inequality Estimation with convey
The R convey
library estimates measures of income concentration, poverty, inequality, and wellbeing. This textbook details the available features. As a starting point for CPS users, this code calculates the gini coefficient on complex sample survey data:
library(convey)
<- convey_prep( cps_design )
cps_design
<- subset( cps_design , a_exprrp %in% 1:2 )
cps_household_design
svygini( ~ htotval , cps_household_design )
Analysis Examples with srvyr
The R srvyr
library calculates summary statistics from survey data, such as the mean, total or quantile using dplyr-like syntax. srvyr allows for the use of many verbs, such as summarize
, group_by
, and mutate
, the convenience of pipe-able functions, the tidyverse
style of non-standard evaluation and more consistent return types than the survey
package. This vignette details the available features. As a starting point for CPS users, this code replicates previously-presented examples:
library(srvyr)
<- as_survey( cps_design ) cps_srvyr_design
Calculate the mean (average) of a linear variable, overall and by groups:
%>%
cps_srvyr_design summarize( mean = survey_mean( ptotval ) )
%>%
cps_srvyr_design group_by( state_name ) %>%
summarize( mean = survey_mean( ptotval ) )