How can I calculate an estimate for the percentage of Medicaid enrollees in CA that are in families with a worker?
This estimated calculation should be possible. First, by using the variable HINSCAID you can indicate whether or not an individual has health insurance through medicaid. Second, identifying families with a worker is a bit more complicated, but still possible. There are a number of ways you could defined “a household with a worker”. Perhaps the most straightforward way is to use the EMPSTAT variable which identifies if an individual was employed, unemployed, or not in the labor force. Note that EMPSTAT is a person-level variable so you’ll have to generate your own variable (within your statistical software of choice) that indicates any household containing a person with EMPSTAT==employed. Finally, you can limit your sample to just CA records by including the STATEFIP variable and using the “Select Cases” tool in the IPUMS data extract.
I hope this helps.