Using Income Variables Prior to CY 2018

(updated 2/9/2012)

These are the variables that are typically used in TRIM simulations for computing person, family, and/or household income using data prior to the CY 2018 ASEC data. 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.

¹See differences in MonthlyUnearnedIncome and DetailedOtherIncome prior to and beginning with CY 2005.

All of the annual income variables (with the exception of OtherPublicAssistance and the TRIM-simulated AFDC and SSI benefits) are found on the input file in the "Adult" table, under the "Annual Income" catgeory, while the monthly income variables (again, with the exception of OtherPublicAssistance and the TRIM-simulated AFDC and SSI) are found on the input file in the "AdultMonthly" table, under the "Monthly Income" catgeory. The OtherPublicAssistance variable is found in the "Adult" table as well, but under the category "Detailed Income Components". A monthly version of OtherPublicAssistance does not currently exist. 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.

TRIM-simulated TANF/AFDC and SSI annual benefits are found in the results table of the baseline TANF/AFDC and SSI simulations, while monthly benefits are found in the monthly results table of the baseline TANF/AFDC and SSI simulations. Note that for some purposes, the user may wish to substitute the actual CPS-reported TANF/AFDC and SSI benefit amounts for the TRIM-simulated amounts. The annual versions of these CPS variables are found in the "Adult" table under the "Detailed Income Components" category, and are named "AFDC" and "SSI", respectively. Since a monthly version does not exist for these variables, for most monthly analyses we simply divide the annual amount by 12. Details on how TRIM simulates TANF/AFDC and SSI benefit amounts are given in the documentation for those programs.

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"), while TRIM-simulated benefit amounts are computed for all persons. Furthermore, the TRIM-simulated benefit amounts are generally spread across all the eligible members of the filing unit, rather than all appearing on the record of the filing unit head (e.g. if a 4-member AFDC unit was eligible for $500 of benefits, the TRIM-simulated benefits would be recorded as $125 on each member's record).