How Did We Do? Evaluating Data for the 2013 Survey of Income and Program Participation Field Test

Matthew C. Marlay, U.S. Census Bureau
Jason Fields, U.S. Census Bureau

The Census Bureau is in the process of reengineering the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The new instrument is based on Event History Calendar (EHC) methods and will debut with the 2014 panel. In 2013, we conducted our final field test of the new survey through a Wave 3 interview of approximately 2,500 households. This paper presents the results of the data review. First, we present the Wave 3 results and compare them to those from the same households collected in Waves 1 and 2 (2011 and 2012, respectively). Next, we compare the field test results for Waves 1-3 to a geographically matched subsample of respondents from the 2008 SIPP panel, to evaluate how well the field test results stack up. Finally, we compare the same results to the available administrative record data.