Background and Planning for Incorporating an Event History Calendar into the Re-Engineered SIPP

The Census Bureau is currently re-engineering the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The reengineered SIPP will be an integrated data system with multiple components and methods: a survey-based data collection; an American Community Survey-based sampling frame; administrative records; and statistical modeling. Together, these components will yield a fuller, stronger, more richly detailed program of estimates of economic well-being. The re-engineered SIPP survey component will be evaluated to incorporate improvements to the current SIPP. The survey’s mission is to provide a nationally representative sample for evaluating: 1) annual and sub-annual income dynamics, 2) movements into and out of government transfer programs, 3) family and social context of individuals and households, and 4) interactions among these items. These survey objectives are pursued in the context of several goals cost reduction and improved accuracy, relevance, timeliness, and accessibility.