# Hourwage and earning of 0

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/hourwage-and-earning-of-0/3739>\
**Category:** TIME USE\
**Created:** [September 4, 2020, 2:41pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/hourwage-and-earning-of-0/3739 "2020-09-04T14:41:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Zahra\_Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9fc348/32.png) [@Zahra\_Khan](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Zahra_Khan)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2020, 2:41pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/hourwage-and-earning-of-0/3739/1 "2020-09-04T14:41:51Z")

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Why do respondents have an hourly wage of 0? are these respondents who were not employed?

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**Author:** ![Grace\_Cooper](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.ipums.org/grace_cooper/32/376_2.png) [@Grace\_Cooper](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Grace_Cooper)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2020, 6:31pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/hourwage-and-earning-of-0/3739/2 "2020-09-11T18:31:32Z")

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According to the original [BLS data dictionaries](https://www.bls.gov/tus/dictionaries.htm#:~:text=American%20Time%20Use%20Survey%20%E2%80%94%20Data,the%20files%20can%20be%20linked.), an hourly wage of 0 is a valid response. Though these occurrences are rare, they are in-universe cases (employed), according to the universe for [HOURWAGE](https://www.atusdata.org/atus-action/variables/HOURWAGE#universe_section). These cases are difficult to interpret so they may be indications of low data quality and should be treated cautiously and potentially dropped from an analysis.