Using Income Variables

(updated 7/1/2020)

These are the variables that are typically used in TRIM simulations for computing person, family, and/or household income. These variables may be extracted from the TRIM database for analyses outside of TRIM. Use the annual variables for annual processing and the monthly variables for monthly processing. Families can be identified by using one of the TRIM variables FamiliesSubfamiliesSeparate or FamiliesWithSubfamilies. Check the document Understanding Family Relationships for descriptions of how to aggregate persons to a family level, and how to identify heads and other household/family relationships.

For detailed information on income variables prior to CY 2018 refer to the document Using Income Variables Prior To CY 2018.

¹See differences in MonthlyUnearnedIncome and DetailedOtherIncome prior to and beginning with CY 2018.

The 2019 CPS ASEC captured changes made to the earlier years of the ASEC survey that had not previously been incorporated into the publicly released data. Among other changes the redesign of the ASEC survey introduced additional detail in the retirement income variables, enabling the creation of several new income variables for TRIM and necessitating the revision of some of the preexisting income variables. Details on the changes in income variables available starting with the CY 2018 data are given in the reference article Income Variable Differences.

All of the annual income variables are found on the input file in the "Adult" table, under the "Annual Income" category, while the monthly income variables are found on the input file in the "AdultMonthly" table, under the "Monthly Income" category. A monthly version of variable PublicAssistance does not currently exist; this is also true for CapitalGains. For most monthly analyses we simply divide the annual amount by 12. Details on how the other annual income amounts are converted into monthly amounts are given in the reference article Monthly Allocation.

The "component variables" column shows the component variables of some of the more aggregated annual income variables. They are all found in the "Adult" table under the category "Detailed Income Components". These variables can be summed and used in place of the aggregate variable.

The user should keep in mind that all of the CPS income variables are only reported for persons 15 years old or older (i.e. "adults").