I’m trying to download the 2024 CPS Nov voting supplement. However, my downloaded file is far smaller (only 1.87 MB) than what it is supposed to be. When I open the folder, there are many filenames of 0KB size. Please see the screenshot of the data extract. (I’m limited to one uploaded file as a new user so I can’t share more screenshots in this initial post.) I am not the most experienced at this, so it is probably user error. However, I can’t figure out the problem after spending quite a bit of time troubleshooting.
Our data are by default delivered as compressed *.gz files. After downloading your data extract, you will need to decompress or unzip it. We recommend 7zip as a free decompression software for Windows and The Unarchiver for Macs. Note that the built-in decompression tool in Windows 11 has occasional issues with these data files.
More broadly, you can request your extract to be delivered in one of five different types of compressed data files; these are fixed-width text files (.dat.gz), comma separated values (.csv.gz), and files formatted for certain statistical software packages including those for Stata (.dta.gz), SAS (.sas7bdat.gz), and SPSS (.sav.gz). Once you’ve determined which of these formats works best for you, you can modify your data request by selecting Data Format from the Extract Request page in your screenshot. R users will want to select fixed-width text files and follow the instructions in the getting started vignette on ipumsr.
You will need to use a statistical software package of some sort to analyze these data to convert them into meaningful statistics. I am linking to our data training exercises, which provide guided examples of working with the microdata files. If you do not have access to one of these statistical packages, then we recommend trying our Online Analysis Tool which can be used to run tabulations of counts and means, as well as some regression and comparison of correlations analyses.
Thank you! I successfully unzipped using 7zip. I believe the issue was with the built-in Windows tool.