N.I.U. Value Confusion INCUNEMP

CPS
1

I am looking to distinguish between topcoded and N.I.U. values for the variable INCUNEMP. Looking over the documentation, I am confused as to which value is the top code and which is the N.I.U. value. I asked a somewhat similar question here in regard to the OINCBUS variable.

When looking at the documentation for INCUNEMP, I see that across years 99999 values correspond to N.I.U. while 99997 correspond to the top code. However, in looking over the IPUMS CPS Top Code table, it tells me that values of 99999 are set to the top code from 1988 to 2010. My code sets all N.I.U. values to missing values, so I need to correctly distinguish between N.I.U. and topcoded values. Which is the correct top code and which is the N.I.U. value for this variable?

2

The answer is the same as your previous question. The top-code depends on the specific sample year for these variables. For both INCUNEMP, 99997 is the topcode for years 1988-1995 and for other years the topcode is specified in the Topcodes Tables. Also note the following from the Topcode page under the Topcodes by Year heading, “When the original CPS topcode is 99999, IPUMS replaces the value with the topcode value 99997 to distinguish it from the IPUMS NIU value.”

1 Like
3

Ah ha, thanks Jeff. I completely overlooked that note you mention in the Top Codes table. This makes sense now: so if the original topcode is equal to 99999, IPUMS sets this to 99997 to distinguish it from the N.I.U. code, and then sets all N.I.U. values to 999999.