Current Population Survey Design and Methodology - Census Bureau

The class-of-worker question also includes separate
response categories for ‘‘private for-profit company’’ and
‘‘nonprofit organization’’ to further classify private wage
and salary workers. The self-employed are those who
work for profit or fees in their own businesses, professions,
trades, or farms. Only the unincorporated selfemployed
are included in the self-employed category since
those whose businesses are incorporated technically are
wage and salary workers because they are paid employees
of a corporation. Unpaid family workers are individuals
working without pay for 15 hours a week or more on a
farm or in a business operated by a member of the household
to whom they are related by birth, marriage, or adoption.
Occupation, industry, and class-of-worker on second
job. The occupation, industry, and class-of-worker information
for individuals’ second jobs is collected in order to
obtain a more accurate measure of multiple jobholders, to
obtain more detailed information about their employment
characteristics, and to provide information necessary for
comparing estimates of number of employees in the CPS
and in BLS’s establishment survey (the Current Employment
Statistics; for an explanation of this survey see BLS
Handbook of Methods at ). For the majority of multiple jobholders,
occupation, industry, and class-of-worker data for their
second jobs are collected only from one-fourth of the
sample—those in their fourth or eighth monthly interview.
However, for those classified as ‘‘self-employed unincorporated’’
on their main jobs, class-of-worker of the second
job is collected each month. This is done because, according
to the official definition, individuals who are ‘‘selfemployed
unincorporated’’ on both of their jobs are not
considered multiple jobholders.
The questions used to determine whether an individual
is employed or not, along with the questions an
employed person typically will receive, are presented in
Figure 5–1 at the end of this chapter.
Earnings. Information on what people earn at their main
job is collected only for those who are receiving their
fourth or eighth monthly interviews. This means that earnings
questions are asked of only one-fourth of the survey
respondents each month. Respondents are asked to report
their usual earnings before taxes and other deductions
and to include any overtime pay, commissions, or tips
usually received. The term ‘‘usual’’ means as perceived by
the respondent. If the respondent asks for a definition of
usual, interviewers are instructed to define the term as
more than half the weeks worked during the past 4 or 5
months. Respondents may report earnings in the time
period they prefer—for example, hourly, weekly, biweekly,
monthly, or annually. (Allowing respondents to report in a
periodicity with which they were most comfortable was a
feature added in the 1994 redesign.) Based on additional
information collected during the interview, earnings
reported on a basis other than weekly are converted to a
weekly amount in later processing. Data are collected for
wage and salary workers, and for self-employed people
whose businesses are incorporated; earnings data are not
collected for self-employed people whose businesses are
unincorporated. (Earnings data are not edited and are not
released to the public for the ‘‘self-employed incorporated.’’)
These earnings data are used to construct estimates
of the distribution of usual weekly earnings and
median earnings. Individuals who do not report their earnings
on an hourly basis are asked if they are, in fact, paid
at an hourly rate and if so, what the hourly rate is. The
earnings of those who reported hourly and those who are
paid at an hourly rate is used to analyze the characteristics
of hourly workers, for example, those who are paid
the minimum wage.
Unemployed people. All people who were not employed
during the reference week but were available for work
(excluding temporary illness) and had made specific
efforts to find employment some time during the 4-week
period ending with the reference week are classified as
unemployed. Individuals who were waiting to be recalled
to a job from which they had been laid off need not have
been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.
People waiting to start a new job must have actively
looked for a job within the last 4 weeks in order to be
counted as unemployed. Otherwise, they are classified as
not in the labor force.
As the definition indicates, there are two ways people may
be classified as unemployed. They are either looking for
work (job seekers) or they have been temporarily separated
from a job (people on layoff). Job seekers must have
engaged in an active job search during the above mentioned
4-week period in order to be classified as unemployed.
(Active methods are defined as job search methods
that have the potential to result in a job offer without
any further action on the part of the job seeker.) Examples
of active job search methods include going to an employer
directly or to a public or private employment agency, seeking
assistance from friends or relatives, placing or answering
ads, or using some other active method. Examples of
the ‘‘other active’’ category include being on a union or
professional register, obtaining assistance from a community
organization, or waiting at a designated labor pickup
point. Passive methods, which do not qualify as job
search, include reading ‘‘help wanted’’ ads and taking a job
training course, as opposed to actually answering ‘‘help
wanted’’ ads or placing ‘‘employment wanted’’ ads. The
response categories for active and passive methods are
clearly delineated in separately labeled columns on the
interviewers’ computer screens. Job search methods are
identified by the following questions: ‘‘Have you been
doing anything to find work during the last 4 weeks?’’ and
5–4 Questionnaire Concepts and Definitions for the Current Population Survey Current Population Survey TP66
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau