Producing U.S. Population Statistics Using Multiple Administrative Sources
November 2023
Working Paper Number:
CES-23-58
Abstract
We identify several challenges encountered when constructing U.S. administrative record-based (AR-based) population estimates for 2020. Though the AR estimates are higher than the 2020 Census at the national level, they are over 15 percent lower in 5 percent of counties, suggesting that locational accuracy can be improved. Other challenges include how to achieve comprehensive coverage, maintain consistent coverage across time, filter out nonresidents and people not alive on the reference date, uncover missing links across person and address records, and predict demographic characteristics when multiple ones are reported or when they are missing. We discuss several ways of addressing these issues, e.g., building in redundancy with more sources, linking children to their parents' addresses, and conducting additional record linkage for people without Social Security Numbers and for addresses not initially linked to the Census Bureau's Master Address File. We discuss modeling to predict lower levels of geography for people lacking those geocodes, the probability that a person is a U.S. resident on the reference date, the probability that an address is the person's residence on the reference date, and the probability a person is in each demographic characteristic category. Regression results illustrate how many of these challenges and solutions affect the AR county population estimates.
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:
respondent,
linked census,
state,
imputation,
record,
population,
geography,
immigration,
citizen,
coverage,
ssa,
resident,
residence,
migration,
reside,
migrant,
census linked,
census records,
census responses,
census 2020
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Internal Revenue Service,
Social Security Administration,
Center for Economic Studies,
Social Security,
Postal Service,
Department of Housing and Urban Development,
American Community Survey,
Social Security Number,
Master Beneficiary Record,
Protected Identification Key,
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families,
NUMIDENT,
Master Address File,
Census Bureau Master Address File,
Census Bureau Disclosure Review Board,
2010 Census,
Customs and Border Protection,
Person Validation System,
Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers,
Census Bureau Person Identification Validation System,
Personally Identifiable Information,
Some Other Race,
Census Household Composition Key
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