Individuals who hold multiple jobs have complex working lives and complex commuting
patterns. Economic and spatial information on these individuals is not readily available in
standard datasets, such as the 2000 Decennial Census Long Form, because the survey questions
were not designed to collect details on multiple jobs. This study takes advantage of firm-based
data from the Unemployment Insurance administrative wage records, linked with the Census
Bureau's household-based data, to examine multiple jobholders - and specifically a sentinel
group of dual jobholders. The study uses a sample from Los Angeles County, California and
examines the dual jobholders by their demographic characteristics as well as their economic,
commuting, and spatial location outcomes. In addition this report evaluates whether multiple
jobholders should be included explicitly in future labor-workforce analyses and transportation
modeling.
-
Social, Economic, Spatial, and Commuting Patterns of Informal Jobholders
April 2007
Working Paper Number:
tp-2007-02
A significant number of employees within the United States can be considered "informal" or
"off-the-books" workers. These workers, who by definition do not appear in administrative wage
records, are distinct from the larger group of private jobholders who do appear in administrative
records. However, while socioeconomic and spatial information on these individuals is readily
available in standard datasets, such as the 2000 Decennial Census Long Form, it is not possible
to identify the informal workers by only using such data because of the lack of accurate, formal
wage records. This study takes advantage of firm-based data that originates in Unemployment
Insurance administrative wage records linked with the Census Bureau's household-based data in
order to examine informal jobholders by their demographic characteristics as well as their
economic, commuting, and spatial location outcomes. In addition this report evaluates whether
informal jobholders should be included explicitly in future labor-workforce analyses and
transportation modeling. The analyses in this report use the sample of workers who lived in Los
Angeles County, California.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Social, Economic, Spatial, and Commuting Patterns of Self-Employed Jobholders
April 2007
Working Paper Number:
tp-2007-03
A significant number of employees within the United States identify themselves as selfemployed,
and they are distinct from the larger group identified as private jobholders. While
socioeconomic and spatial information on these individuals is readily available in standard
datasets, such as the 2000 Decennial Census Long Form, it is possible to gain further information
on their wage earnings by using data from administrative wage records. This study takes
advantage of firm-based data from Unemployment Insurance administrative wage records linked
with the Census Bureau's household-based data in order to examine self-employed jobholders -
both as a whole and as subgroups defined according to their earned wage status - by their
demographic characteristics as well as their economic, commuting, and spatial location
outcomes. Additionally, this report evaluates whether self-employed jobholders and the defined
subgroups should be included explicitly in future labor-workforce analyses and transportation
modeling. The analyses in this report use the sample of self-employed workers who lived in Los
Angeles County, California.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Exploring Differences in Employment between Household and Establishment Data
April 2009
Working Paper Number:
CES-09-09
Using a large data set that links individual Current Population Survey (CPS) records to employer-reported administrative data, we document substantial discrepancies in basic measures of employment status that persist even after controlling for known definitional differences between the two data sources. We hypothesize that reporting discrepancies should be most prevalent for marginal workers and marginal jobs, and find systematic associations between the incidence of reporting discrepancies and observable person and job characteristics that are consistent with this hypothesis. The paper discusses the implications of the reported findings for both micro and macro labor market analysis
View Full
Paper PDF
-
A New Measure of Multiple Jobholding in the U.S. Economy
September 2020
Working Paper Number:
CES-20-26
We create a measure of multiple jobholding from the U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data. This new series shows that 7.8 percent of persons in the U.S. are multiple jobholders, this percentage is pro-cyclical, and has been trending upward during the past twenty years. The data also show that earnings from secondary jobs are, on average, 27.8 percent of a multiple jobholder's total quarterly earnings. Multiple jobholding occurs at all levels of earnings, with both higher- and lower-earnings multiple jobholders earning more than 25 percent of their total earnings from multiple jobs. These new statistics tell us that multiple jobholding is more important in the U.S. economy than we knew.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
A COMPARISON OF PERSON-REPORTED INDUSTRY TO EMPLOYER-REPORTED INDUSTRY
IN SURVEY AND ADMINISTRATIVE DATA
September 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-47
The Census Bureau collects industry information through surveys and administrative data and creates associated public-use statistics. In this paper, we compare person-reported industry in the American Community Survey (ACS) to employer-reported industry from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) that is part of the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program. This research provides necessary information on the use of administrative data as a supplement to survey data industry information, and the findings will be useful for anyone using industry information from either source. Our project is part of a larger effort to compare information on jobs from household survey data to employer-reported information. This research is the first to compare ACS job data to firm-based administrative data. We find an overall industry sector match rate of 75 percent, and a 61 percent match rate at the 4-digit Census Industry Code (CIC) level. Industry match rates vary by sector and by whether industry sector is classified using ACS or LEHD industry information. The educational services and health care and social assistance sectors have among the highest match rates. The management of companies and enterprises sector has the lowest match rate, using either ACS-reported or LEHD-reported sector. For individuals with imputed industry data, the industry sector match rate is only 14 percent. Our findings suggest that the industry distribution and the sample in a particular industry sector will differ depending on whether ACS or LEHD data are used.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Further Evidence from Census 2000 About Earnings by Detailed Occupation for Men and Women: The Role of Race and Hispanic Origin
November 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-37
A 2004 report by the author reviewed data from Census 2000 and concluded "There is a substantial gap in median earnings between men and women that is unexplained, even after controlling for work experience (to the extent it can be represented by age and presence of children), education, and occupation." This paper extends the analysis and concludes that once those characteristics are controlled for, no further explanatory power is attributable to race or Hispanic origin.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
The Recent Decline of Single Quarter Jobs
January 2015
Working Paper Number:
CES-15-05
Rates of hiring and job separation fell by as much as a third in the U.S. between the late 1990s and the early 2010s. Half of this decline is associated with the declining incidence of jobs that start and end in the same calendar quarter, employment events that we call 'single quarter jobs.' We investigate this unique subset of jobs and its decline using matched employer-employee data for the years 1996-2012. We characterize the worker demographics and employer characteristics of single quarter jobs, and demonstrate that changes over time in workforce and employer composition explain little of the decline in these jobs. We find that the decline in these jobs accounts for about a third of the decline in the fraction of the population that holds a job in the private sector that occurred from the mid 2000s to the early 2010s. We also find little evidence that single quarter jobs are stepping stones into longer-term employment. Finally, we show that the inclusion or exclusion of these single quarter jobs creates divergent trends in average earnings and the dispersion of earnings for the years 1996-2012. To the extent that administrative records measure the volatile tail of the employment distribution better thanconventional household surveys, these findings show that measurement of short duration jobs matters for economic analysis.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Counting The Self-Employed From Two Perspectives: Household Vs. Business Sample Data
August 1995
Working Paper Number:
CES-95-11
This study compares the number and attributes of self-employed workers using the Characteristics of Business Owners and Current Population Survey data series. Both sources of data have been widely used in empirical studies of entrepreneurship/self-employment. Substantial and inexplicable differences were found in the two data series' estimates of the number of self-employed men and women for both reference years. In terms of individual attributes, the CBO and CPS appear to report reasonably similar profiles of self-employed individuals in terms of marital status and geographic location, and similar systematic gender differences in the industrial distributions of these individuals. However, in terms of other attributes captured by both data series, including age, the two series exhibit notable dissimilarities.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Medicare Coverage and Reporting
December 2016
Working Paper Number:
carra-2016-12
Medicare coverage of the older population in the United States is widely recognized as being nearly universal. Recent statistics from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) indicate that 93 percent of individuals aged 65 and older were covered by Medicare in 2013. Those without Medicare include those who are not eligible for the public health program, though the CPS ASEC estimate may also be impacted by misreporting. Using linked data from the CPS ASEC and Medicare Enrollment Database (i.e., the Medicare administrative data), we estimate the extent to which individuals misreport their Medicare coverage. We focus on those who report having Medicare but are not enrolled (false positives) and those who do not report having Medicare but are enrolled (false negatives). We use regression analyses to evaluate factors associated with both types of misreporting including socioeconomic, demographic, and household characteristics. We then provide estimates of the implied Medicare-covered, insured, and uninsured older population, taking into account misreporting in the CPS ASEC. We find an undercount in the CPS ASEC estimates of the Medicare covered population of 4.5 percent. This misreporting is not random - characteristics associated with misreporting include citizenship status, year of entry, labor force participation, Medicare coverage of others in the household, disability status, and imputation of Medicare responses. When we adjust the CPS ASEC estimates to account for misreporting, Medicare coverage of the population aged 65 and older increases from 93.4 percent to 95.6 percent while the uninsured rate decreases from 1.4 percent to 1.3 percent.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Poverty Estimates for Places in the United States
September 2005
Working Paper Number:
CES-05-12
This paper first describes some historical poverty trends, overall and for demographic groups and broad locations within the U.S. from an ongoing household survey, and then presents some specific information on poverty for localities by size, from the most recent decennial census (2000). Rural poverty exceeded urban poverty in 1969 and 1979, but urban poverty in 1999 was higher than rural poverty. Non-metropolitan area poverty exceeded metropolitan area poverty in each of the four censuses, but within each of those areas, rural poverty is now less than urban poverty. Within metropolitan areas, poverty is highest for those in central cities. For urbanized areas (50,000 or more population), the poverty rate is lower as the area gets larger, with the exception of the very largest-sized areas. This higher poverty for the largest places is accounted for entirely by the higher poverty rate for the central city or cities in those urban agglomerations, as the poverty rates for the parts of the urbanized areas not in the central place continue to fall as the area itself gets larger. Some of the critical relationships affecting the poverty rate of places appear to be the location of certain types of people - female householders, non-citizens, people of color, and college graduates.
View Full
Paper PDF