CREAT: Census Research Exploration and Analysis Tool

Comparison of Child Reporting in the American Community Survey and Federal Income Tax Returns Based on California Birth Records

September 2024

Written by: Gloria G. Aldana

Working Paper Number:

CES-24-55

Abstract

This paper takes advantage of administrative records from California, a state with a large child population and a significant historical undercount of children in Census Bureau data, dependent information in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 1040 records, and the American Community Survey to characterize undercounted children and compare child reporting. While IRS Form 1040 records offer potential utility for adjusting child undercounting in Census Bureau surveys, this analysis finds overlapping reporting issues among various demographic and economic groups. Specifically, older children, those of Non-Hispanic Black mothers and Hispanic mothers, children or parents with lower English proficiency, children whose mothers did not complete high school, and families with lower income-to-poverty ratio were less frequently reported in IRS 1040 records than other groups. Therefore, using IRS 1040 dependent records may have limitations for accurately representing populations with characteristics associated with the undercount of children in surveys.

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survey, minority, ethnicity, ethnic, hispanic, surveys censuses, immigrant, record, federal, population, enrollment, census bureau, records census, irs, research census, use census, exemption, dependent, family, parental, census household, adoption, 1040, child

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Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, Decennial Census, Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews and Computer Assisted Personal Interviews, Department of Housing and Urban Development, American Community Survey, Protected Identification Key, Computer Assisted Personal Interview, Census Bureau Disclosure Review Board, Person Validation System, Indian Housing Information Center, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Person Identification Validation System, Census Edited File, Personally Identifiable Information, Census Household Composition Key

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