Hello IPUMS user forum,
I am checking ASECWTCVD in 2020 ASEC and find that they are different from the ones published by the Census (Public-use weights adjusting for nonresponse during the pandemic). Does IPUMS make any adjustments before adding the weights into the 2020 ASEC? Or does the Census retrospectively revise the weights? In addition, is IPUMS planning to add the 2021 weights (and maybe the weights for 2017-2019 as well) any time soon?
Thanks so much for your help!
Best,
Kuochih
IPUMS did not adjust these weights, but the Census Bureau did re-release new versions of these weights on 2/16/2022 according to the link you posted. IPUMS CPS is planning to replace the old COVID weights with these new ones, which will probably be done in April. They are considering whether to include the weights for 2021 and earlier years.
If you would like to add these weights to your IPUMS extract in the meantime, you should be able to do so using a two-step process. First, merge the files with the relevant microdata files at NBER using the linking keys h_pos pppos. Note that these will only uniquely identify observations within a single year sample. Second, merge the NBER files (+new weights) with your IPUMS extract using the procedure described in this blog post.
This is good to know. For what it’s worth, I would appreciate having the Census-produced COVID weights for 2017-2021, not just for 2020-2021, to compare effects of using this weight to pre-pandemic ASECWT estimates. Thanks!