By Martha Heberlein

As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, the Current Population Survey (CPS)  was released today. (Not a whole lot of happy news in there – check out Joan’s statement for details.) Before you start digging in too deeply, we wanted to flag a few things about the data:

• State-by-State Data – Everyone (including a slew of reporters on the release call) are dying to know: “what does this mean for my state?” Well, while the CPS does provide some state estimates, they’re 2- or 3-year averages and the Census Bureau recommends  (as do we) that you wait until next week for the release of the American Community Survey (ACS) data before trying to answer that question.  We’ll be back with details on what those data say on the 22nd.
• Trends – If you’re looking at the CPS for national trends, be aware that Census Bureau has made some changes to the way they process the data (basically attempting to better estimate coverage for non-responders). Luckily, they’ve implemented these changes in the historical tables back to 2000, so just be sure you’re using the versions posted today and not data you had on file from prior years. And if you want a bit more explanation on the changes, Matt Broaddus, the data guru we often turn to at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, released a brief last week that provides it.

Good luck with your data diving. And, as always, let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.