To whom this may concern–
I am currently working with the Veterans Supplement from 1995-2013, and am writing to clarify the best way to get income/salary/wage information beyond the variable “hourwage,” which to my understanding, only includes information on the wages of employees paid hourly. Is there a way to find this data for ALL veterans, both hourly and salaried employees, within the supplement itself? Or would we have to link up the supplement with the March main CPS file by year?
Thank you in advance for any help you are able to provide–
Caroline Crawford
crawfoce@bc.edu
Unfortunately, the non-March (ASEC) earnings variables are only available for those respondents in the Outgoing Rotation/Earner Study group. For those veterans that were not asked the additional Earner Study questions in the same month as the Veteran Supplement, you will need to link them to their Outgoing Rotation month (MISH=4 or 8). Since the Veteran Supplement was asked in either August or September, there will be no overlap in sample with the March ASEC file (more than 3 months apart).
Amongst the Outgoing Rotation questions, HOURWAGE and EARNWEEK, which reports the respondent’s usual weekly earnings, are the two available variables for calculating income. You could also use EARNWEEK in combination with hours worked per week and weeks worked per year to estimate hourly wages and annual salaries for non-hourly workers.
Hope this helps.