Survey of Income and Program Participation

General Overview

The SIPP is a nationally representative data set collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Although it tracks many measures of economic and labor market well-being, the original purpose of the data were to explore the trends in poverty, income,  federal program use, and employment.  Originally used to calculate the poverty measure in the U.S., it continues to be one of the nine data sets that the Census uses for this purpose. The SIPP  over samples in low income areas which makes it a stronger measure of program participation than other Census data. This, in combination with it's complex design (surveying participating households every four months over a four year time span), allows for strong longitudinal analyses that can examine economic inequality and disparity in the United States. This data are highly recommended for social workers examining and challenging economic injustice.  

Warnings

The SIPP can be challenging to use and is generally not recommended for novice data analysts.  The SIPP requires a fair amount of knowledge on sorting, merging, cleaning, and managing data. This is especially true if you are interested in examining one of the many topical modules that are collected in addition to the core survey.  Also, analyses conducted on the SIPP must account for it's complex design, meaning data must be clustered, stratified, and weighted prior to analysis.  

Accessing the SIPP

The SIPP can be downloaded from a few sources:

• DataFerrett: Hosted by the U.S. Census this can be a good place to download the SIPP if you are only looking to examine a few variables.  DataFerrett requires you use Internet Explorer or Firefox internet browsers. 

• The National Bureau of Economic Research: This is the best site for downloading the SIPP.  It allows you to core and topical modules of public use version of the SIPP without limiting the overall amount you can download. This site also contains the most recent information and data guides for the SIPP. The NBER and Jean Roth deserve serious recognition for the  work they have done on this site to make the SIPP accessible for all. Warning: To download and unpack data from this site you will need some basic knowledge about computers and coding. The data definition files require you to tell it the location on your computer where you downloaded the data or it can't find it to unpack it. You will also need to give it a valid file location to save or you will have to manually save each data file as it unpacks.