# Comparable weights with ACS

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/comparable-weights-with-acs/4600>\
**Category:** CPS\
**Created:** [April 12, 2022, 12:04am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/comparable-weights-with-acs/4600 "2022-04-12T00:04:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Yizhi\_Zhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Yizhi\_Zhu](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Yizhi_Zhu)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2022, 12:04am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/comparable-weights-with-acs/4600/1 "2022-04-12T00:04:55Z")

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Dear who may concern,

In CPS, I have been trying to find a population weight that is comparable to the “perwt” in ACS?

Suppose, I want to find the population with a Bachelor’s degree for each MSA for the year of 2004, which weight shall I use?

I did try to check the “asecwt” and the “REPWTP” in CPS; but their magnitudes look way different from ACS.

When I checked this on the CPS website; they have an instruction for this, see [CPS instruction](https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/technical-documentation/methodology/producing-summary-statistics.html#:~:text=To%20produce%20an%20estimate%20of,the%20appropriate%20set%20of%20persons.). But I could not find a similar variable with what they imply there.

Can anyone help me with this question?

Thanks,

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**Author:** ![Matthew\_Bombyk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Matthew\_Bombyk](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Matthew_Bombyk)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2022, 4:49pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/comparable-weights-with-acs/4600/2 "2022-04-12T16:49:07Z")

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The weight in the CPS-ASEC that corresponds to PERWT in the ACS is [ASECWT](https://cps.ipums.org/cps-action/variables/ASECWT). This is the final person-level weight. If you are using the basic monthly CPS samples, the weight would be [WTFINL](https://cps.ipums.org/cps-action/variables/WTFINL). There are also [other weights in the CPS data](https://cps.ipums.org/cps-action/faq#ques7) that are used in specific analyses. The weights essentially tell you how many people in the population are represented by a specific person in the sample. So surveys with smaller samples will have larger weights on average. That’s why the ASEC weights are larger than the ACS weights.