Longitudinal Employer - Household Dynamics
Technical paper No. TP-2002-24
Estimating Measurement Error in SIPP Annual Job Earnings:
A Comparison of Census Survey and SSA Administrative Data
Date
: September 2002
Prepared by
: Martha Stinson
Contact
: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Program
FB 2138-3
4700 Silver Hill Rd.
Suitland, MD 20233 USA
This document reports the results of research and analysis undertaken by the U.S. Census Bureau staff. It has
undergone a Census Bureau review more limited in scope than that given to official Census Bureau publications, and
is released to inform interested parties of ongoing research and to encourage discussion of work in progress. This
research is a part of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program (LEHD), which
is partially supported by the National Science Foundation Grant SES-9978093 to Cornell University (Cornell Institute
for Social and Economic Research), the National Institute on Aging, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The views
expressed herein are attributable only to the author(s) and do not represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau, its
program sponsors or data providers. Some or all of the data used in this paper are confidential data from the LEHD
Program. The U.S. Census Bureau is preparing to support external researchers’ use of these data; please contact
Ronald Prevost (Ronald.C.Prevost@census.gov), U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Program, FB 2138-3, 4700 Silver Hill
Rd., Suitland, MD 20233, USA.
Estimating Measurement Error in SIPP Annual
Job Earnings: A Comparison of Census Survey
and SSA Administrative Data∗
Martha H. Stinson†
September 12, 2002
Abstract
The third chapter investigates measurement error in SIPP annual job
earnings data linked to SSA administrative earnings data. The multiple
earnings measures provided by the survey and administrative data enable
the identification of components of true variation and variation due to
measurement error. We find that 18% of the variation in SIPP annual job
earnings can be attributed