Is it possible/appropriate to calculate five-year average statistics from the IPUMS CPS monthly data? I know how to calculate an annual average from the monthly data. However, I’m unsure of whether it’s appropriate to use the same calculation for a five-year average, or if the weighting scheme used by the CPS is compatible with a five-year average.
Similar methods for producing annual estimates can be used to calculate five-year averages with monthly CPS data. You will want to create an extract with all basic monthly survey samples (excluding the ASEC) within your five-year period. If you’re looking to use the weights as expansion factors to calculate population-level counts (e.g. the size of the labor force), you should divide your weights by the number of samples that you’re using (i.e. 60 for five years). Note that as with ACS 5-year estimates, 5-year CPS estimates can equate to the midpoint of the time series in certain specific cases, but this is not always the case. Since the population will increase throughout the period, your estimates will be weighted towards the latter half of the period. Note also that the Census Bureau strongly recommends against comparing estimates in overlapping 5-year periods (e.g. 2017-2021 & 2018-2022) since much of the data in each estimate are the same.
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Thanks so much for your assistance. This answers my question.