Comparing Census Bureau and IPUMS USA Inflation Adjustments to American Community Survey Income Variables

Researchers working with variables that report income must account for the changing value of a dollar across time. IPUMS USA, and other IPUMS data collections, include resources that streamline the process of adjusting monetary variables into constant dollars to facilitate comparison. These tools are very useful for researchers who are initiating research projects and exclusively using IPUMS data; however, these tools can make it difficult to directly compare, for example, IPUMS and the original U.S. Census Bureau versions of public use microdata sample (PUMS) data. This blog post provides an overview of how the Census Bureau reports income values in the American Community Survey (ACS) PUMS data, the adjustment factors provided by the Census Bureau, and how those map onto variables and ACS microdata extracts from IPUMS USA.

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