CPS ASEC (March) Data

CEPR Uniform Extracts of the March CPS are available to download in Stata format, for years March 1980 through March 2018. Note that this is a beta release. We welcome any comments or questions about this release.

Our Stata programs are the major source for information on our extracts. For the March CPS, the programs can be found here. Our Stata code show the changes we made to the original raw CPS March variables in order to create our extract.

For 2014, there are two separate data files. There is a regular CPS March 2014 file (cepr_march_2014.zip) that is based on the 5/8ths sample with original income questions – this is what the Census Bureau has used for their normal publications on income and poverty. We also have available the 3/8ths or Research File (cepr_march_2014_research.zip) that has the redesigned income questions.

We recommend that you use the 5/8ths sample with original income questions for your publications.

For more on these changes, and the Census Bureau’s recommendations on how to handle the data, please see here.

Download the CEPR March CPS Uniform Extracts, Version 1.1. See the cepr_march_master.do changelog for a complete listing of changes.

Each compressed file is about 15-25Mb; uncompressed, each Stata data file is about 100-200Mb. If you don’t want to download the data, you can replicate the CEPR CPS March Uniform Extracts by using our programs.

ATTRIBUTION

If you use the CEPR Uniform Extracts of the CPS march in your research, please cite them as

  • Center for Economic and Policy Research. 2019. March CPS Uniform Extracts, Version 1.1. Washington, DC.

The timestamp and version of your downloaded dataset can be found using the Stata –describe, short–command.

Please contact us if you publish any research using this data, so we can list your work on our CEPR Uniform Extracts publications page.