U.S. Earnings Mobility: Comparing Survey-Based and Administrative-Based Estimates

Earnings mobility has been studied both at the macro level (how much of a certain kind of mobility is there in the economy?) and at the micro level (what are the correlates of change in income or position?). Many empirical mobility studies provide estimates of the amount of mobility in a country over time and the correlates of individual mobility within the income distribution. While measurement error is recognized as potentially important at both these levels, very little is known about the degree to which earnings mobility estimates are affected by measurement error. In this paper, we use a new dataset that contains individually reported total annual labor earnings from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) linked to employer-reported total annual labor earnings from the Social Security Administration’s Detailed Earnings Record (DER; these are taken directly from Box 1 on theW-2 form and are not capped by FICA) to compare micro and macro earnings mobility estimates for the U.S. during the 1990s using the two different earnings measures. We ask how much difference it makes to mobility estimates to use administrative-based earnings rather than survey-based earnings, and we obtain two major findings. Qualitatively, we find that the results are similar but not identical when administrative-based earnings are used rather than survey-based earnings. Quantitatively, we find that magnitudes are often very different when administrative-based earnings are used rather than survey-based earnings. The administrative-based results are neither systematically larger nor systematically smaller than the survey-based ones.earnings mobility, measurement error, macro mobility, micro mobility.

U.S. Earnings Mobility: Comparing Survey-Based and Administrative-Based Estimates

Earnings mobility has been studied both at the macro level (how much of a certain kind of mobility is there in the economy?) and at the micro level (what are the correlates of change in income or position?). Many empirical mobility studies provide estimates of the amount of mobility in a country over time and the correlates of individual mobility within the income distribution. While measurement error is recognized as potentially important at both these levels, very little is known about the degree to which earnings mobility estimates are affected by measurement error. In this paper, we use a new dataset that contains individually-reported total annual labor earnings from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) linked to employer-reported total annual labor earnings from the Social Security Administration’s Detailed Earnings Record (DER) to compare micro and macro earnings mobility estimates for the U.S. during the 1990s using the two different earnings measures. We ask how much difference it makes to mobility estimates to use administrative-based earnings rather than survey-based earnings, and we obtain two major findings. Qualitatively, we find that the results are similar but not identical when administrative-based earnings are used rather than survey-based earnings. Quantitatively, we find that magnitudes are often very different when administrative-based earnings are used rather than survey-based earnings. The administrative-based results are neither systematically larger nor systematically smaller than the survey-based ones

Validating U.S. Earnings Mobility Measures

Earnings mobility has been studied at both the macro level (the amount of mobility in an economy) and the micro level (the correlates of individuals’ income changes). While measurement error is recognized as potentially important at both these levels, very little is known about the degree to which earnings mobility estimates are affected by measurement error. We compare micro and macro earnings mobility estimates for the U.S. during the 1990s using both survey-based earnings and administrative-based earnings. We find that measurement error in survey-based earnings has little qualitative effect on mobility estimates, but often has a large quantitative effect

Measuring the Effect of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Participation on Food Security

Excerpts from report: Mathematica Policy Research conducted the SNAP Food Security (SNAPFS) survey for FNS between October 2011 and September 2012, to assess the effect of SNAP participation on food security and food spending in the post-ARRA environment of higher SNAP allotments. SNAPFS was the largest survey of food security and food spending among SNAP participants to date, with 9,811 households interviewed in 30 States. This report presents the evaluation findings, which are based on a quasi-experimental design intended to minimize selection bias by comparing information collected from SNAP households within days of entering the program to information obtained after about six months of participation to control for factors unrelated to SNAP. The main objectives of the study were to: • Assess how household food security and food expenditures vary with SNAP participation • Examine how the relationships between SNAP and food security and between SNAP and food expenditures vary by key household characteristics and circumstances • Examine in more depth what factors may distinguish between food secure and food insecure SNAP households with children. This report contains the research findings for the first and second objectives. The third objective was based on a qualitative component of the study and was addressed in a separate report. The findings provide strong evidence that SNAP is associated with an improvement in food security. This evidence suggests SNAP is accomplishing one of its main goals, that of reducing food insecurity among low-income households