Hi there,
RETCONT gives the dollar amount for retirement account contributions in the last year. Where is the predecessor, which shows individuals who had an account in the first place? The IPUMS description implies there is a variable that identifies all records who had an account, even if they did not contribute.
“For respondents who report having a retirement account in the previous year, RETCONT indicates how much money the respondent contributed to this account. Respondents are instructed not to include money that was reinvested from other retirement accounts.”
https://cps.ipums.org/cps-action/variables/RETCONT#description_section
Thank you!
That question is currently available as the unharmonized variable UH_RETCBYN_A1.
Hello, if I want to calculate the contribution rate, which income do I use? inclongj? or incwage+incbus? or inctot?
You can use INCTOT to calculate the percentage of total gross personal income an individual contributed to their retirement account. INCTOT combines all sources of pre-tax personal income or losses (see the comparability tab for INCTOT for a list of these sources over time). These sources include wage and business income, as well as income earned from interest (INCINT), dividends (INCDIVID), and other sources. If you want to calculate the rate as a percentage of wage/salary income, then INCWAGE is the correct variable to use. INCWAGE includes all wage/salary income earned from all jobs in the preceding calendar year, while INCLONGJ only includes income from the longest held job in the previous year.
A number of procedures are implemented to prevent the identification of individuals with high values for all income variables. The evolution of these procedures over time can be divided into traditional topcoding (1962-1995), replacement values (1996-2010), and rank proximity swapping (2011+) phases and is detailed in this IPUMS CPS user reference guide. These procedures will affect estimates of the contribution rates for affected individuals with incomes above these thresholds.