As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, the Current
Population Survey (CPS) was released today. (Not a whole lot of happy
news in there – check out Joan’s statement for details.) Before you start
digging in too deeply, we wanted to flag a few things about the data:
- State-by-State Data – Everyone (including a slew of
reporters on the release call) are dying to know: “what does this mean for my
state?” Well, while the CPS does provide some state estimates, they’re 2- or
3-year averages and the Census Bureau recommends (as do we) that you
wait until next week for the release of the American Community Survey (ACS) data before trying to answer that question. We’ll be back with details on what those data say on the
22nd. - Trends – If you’re looking at the CPS for national
trends, be aware that Census Bureau has made some changes to the way they
process the data (basically attempting to better estimate coverage for
non-responders). Luckily, they’ve implemented these changes in the historical
tables back to 2000, so just be sure you’re using the versions posted today and
not data you had on file from prior years. And if you want a bit more
explanation on the changes, Matt Broaddus, the data guru we often turn to at
the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, released a brief last week
that provides it.
Good luck with your data diving. And, as always, let us
know if there’s anything we can do to help.