Using the Annual Social and Economic Supplement with Current Population Survey Panels

Jose Pacas, University of Minnesota
Sarah Flood, University of Minnesota

The Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) is the most commonly used type of Current Population Survey (CPS) data with its rich information about employment, unions, health insurance and taxes. Researchers typically use these data as repeated cross sections despite the longitudinal component of the CPS, which many researchers are unaware of and very few leverage. The IPUMS-CPS (https://cps.ipums.org) project at the University of Minnesota is undergoing a large-scale effort to unlock the enormous research potential of the CPS by making it easier to access and use monthly CPS data and to link observations over time. This paper details the complexities and unique aspects of the ASEC and the creation of an identifier that makes the linkage between the ASEC and the March basic monthly data simple and drastically simplifies analyzing ASEC data as part of a panel of CPS observations.