Publications

Linking Survey and Administrative Data to Measure Income, Inequality and Mobility

International Journal of Population Data Science

Documents how the CID Project will transform our understanding of poverty, income and well-being by linking surveys, tax records and administrative program data in the most comprehensive and systematic way ever done in the U.S.

The Poverty Reduction of Social Security and Means-Tested Transfers

Industrial and Labor Relations Review

Inaugural CID project demonstrating the power of the CID to change our understanding of the poverty-reducing effects of social insurance and means-tested transfer programs, finds largest under-reporting effects for single-parent families.

Using Linked Survey and Administrative Data to Better Measure Income: Implications for Poverty, Program Effectiveness and Holes in the Safety Net

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

Examines how the under-reporting of transfers exaggerates the share below the poverty line and other income cutoffs, exaggerates the share missed by government programs, and understates the effectiveness of government programs.

An Empirical Total Survey Error Decomposition Using Data Combination

Journal of Econometrics

Decomposes the error in mean survey reports of government benefits into the sources of survey errors.

The Use and Misuse of Income Data and Extreme Poverty in the United States

Journal of Labor Economics

CID shows that no more than 1 in every 900 Americans and essentially no children live on less than $2 per day, overturning widely cited survey-based estimate that 3.6 million children live in extreme poverty in the U.S.

The Accuracy of Tax Imputations: Estimating Tax Liabilities and Credits Using Linked Survey and Administrative Data

Measuring and Understanding the Distribution and Intra/Inter-Generational Mobility of Income and Wealth (NBER book chapter)

Brings extremely detailed tax records into the CID to show that widely used survey-based estimates of taxes owed by families are off by almost $10,000 on average, evidence that CID-based research will heavily impact our understanding of income and poverty in the U.S.

Income and Poverty in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity

Establishes methods to measure poverty on a near real-time basis, validates the measure using public use data, and examines the role that policy played in reducing poverty early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Building the Comprehensive Income Dataset to Create Highly Accurate Evidence on Disadvantage

Forthcoming chapter in Brookings Institution volume, Build Me the Evidence

Summarizes how the CID is improving our understanding of disadvantage in the United States, and how this evidence lays the foundation for policymakers and practitioners building evidence-based solutions to improve the outcomes of disadvantaged Americans.

Introducing a New Dataset to Better Understand Homelessness in the US

VoxEU

Reports on how the CID Project is building an unprecedented dataset to improve our understanding of homelessness in the United States, and summarizes early findings from this research agenda.

The Change in Poverty from 1995 to 2016 Among Single Parent Families

AEA Papers and Proceedings

Errors in Survey Reporting and Imputation and Their Effects on Estimates of Food Stamp Program Participation

Journal of Human Resources

Consumption and Income Inequality in the United States Since the 1960s

Journal of Political Economy

The Size and Census Coverage of the U.S. Homeless Population

Journal of Urban Economics

Working Papers

Learning about Homelessness Using Linked Survey and Administrative Data

NBER Working Paper

First ever study to examine the characteristics, labor market attachment, geographic mobility, earnings, and safety net utilization of the homeless population at the national level using administrative data on income and government program receipt.

Errors in Reporting and Imputation of Government Benefits and Their Implications

NBER Working Paper

By linking surveys to administrative program data from New York, finds high rate of misreporting in surveys of transfer program receipt and that imputation of program receipt does not solve the problem.

The Anti-Poverty, Targeting, and Labor Supply Effects of Replacing a Child Tax Credit with a Child Allowance

NBER Working Paper

Current proposals to expand the Child Tax Credit would reduce employment by 1.5 million people and, as a result, reduce child poverty by only 22%—more than a third lower than estimates that fail to account for employment reductions—and fail to reduce deep child poverty at all.

The Mortality of the U.S. Homeless Population

Becker Friedman Institute Working Paper

Does Geographically Adjusting Poverty Thresholds Improve Poverty Measurement and Program Targeting?

Working Paper

Certification and Recertification in Welfare Programs: What Happens When Automation Goes Wrong?

Working Paper

What Leads to Measurement Errors? Evidence from Reports of Program Participation in Three Surveys

NBER Working Paper

Changes in the Distribution of Economic Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Nationally Representative Consumption Data

NBER Working Paper

The Change in Poverty from 1995 to 2016 Among Single Parent Families (Long Version)

NBER Working Paper