Exploring Differences in Employment between Household and Establishment Data
April 2009
Working Paper Number:
CES-09-09
Abstract
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
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payroll,
report,
survey,
employee,
employ,
employed,
labor,
recession,
job,
estimates employment,
employment estimates,
discrepancy,
employing,
worker,
labor statistics,
employment count,
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Social Security Administration,
Center for Economic Studies,
Current Population Survey,
Survey of Income and Program Participation,
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Social Security Number,
Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics,
PSID,
Protected Identification Key,
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
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