I was wondering why the PWTYPE variable was missing in the ACS 2022-23 data, and whether there are any plans to add it back in the future. If not, can you suggest any workarounds for determining whether a Place-of-Work PUMA is inside or outside a metro area?
We do have plans to add PWTYPE into the 2022 and 2023 samples, but the timeline is uncertain.
The Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) don’t directly identify the information that PWTYPE provides. The only information in the PUMS about place of work is the place-of-work state and the place-of-work “PUMA” (Public Use Microdata Area). IPUMS USA identifies these areas through PWSTATE2 and PWPUMA00.
To derive PWTYPE, IPUMS USA researchers must first develop a geographic crosswalk between the identified place-of-work PUMAs and metropolitan areas.
The 2022 PUMS was the first to identify the 2020 version of place-of-work PUMAs. Previous PUMS, from 2012 through 2021, identified 2010 versions of place-of-work PUMAs.
After the switch to the new 2020 PUMA versions, most of the IPUMS USA geographic variables (including place-of-work and migration variables) require special processing to develop new crosswalks to extend the variables into the new samples.
We’ve completed most of these extensions now, but PWTYPE remains to be done.
For the PWTYPE extension, we plan to build a crosswalk between 2020 place-of-work PUMAs and 2023 definitions of metro areas, but we’ve already created a crosswalk between 2020 place-of-work PUMAs and 2013 metro areas. We used that crosswalk to extend the PWMET13 variable, which identifies 2013 metro areas. There’s a link to the crosswalk through the PWMET13 variable description.
Using that crosswalk, you could determine which 2020 place-of-work PUMAs (as identified by PWPUMA00) are entirely within, partially within, or not within 2013 metro areas.