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THE 2006 EARNINGS PUBLIC-USE MICRODATA FILE: AN INTRODUCTION.

This article introduces the 2006 Earnings Public-Use File (EPUF) and provides important background information on the file's data fields. The EPUF contains selected demographic and earnings information for 4.3 million individuals drawn from a 1-percent sample of all Social Security numbers issued be...

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Published in:Social Security Bulletin Vol. 71; no. 4; pp. 33 - 60
Main Author: Compson, Michael
Format: Article
Published: Social Security Administration 2011
Subjects:
United States
United States. Social Security Administration
Social security
Government securities
Old age pensions
Government insurance
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Summary:This article introduces the 2006 Earnings Public-Use File (EPUF) and provides important background information on the file's data fields. The EPUF contains selected demographic and earnings information for 4.3 million individuals drawn from a 1-percent sample of all Social Security numbers issued before January 2007. The data file provides aggregate earnings for 1937 to 1950 and annual earnings data for 1951 to 2006. The article focuses on four key items: (1) the Social Security Administration's experiences collecting earnings data over the years and their effect on the data fields included in EPUF; (2) the steps taken to "clean" the underlying administrative data and to minimize the risk of personal data disclosure; (3) the potential limitations of using EPUF data to estimate Social Security benefits for some individuals; and (4) frequency distributions and statistical tabulations of the data in the file, to provide a point of reference for EPUF users.