July 12 -- The U.S. Census Bureau invites public comment to OMB by August 12, 2024 regarding proposed Census Household Panel Topical 10, Topical 11, and Topical 12 Operations. The Topical 10 (August) survey will include a roster experiment, and content from the Household Pulse Survey (HPS) to run in parallel with the HPS Phase 4.2. The September survey (Topical 11) will include a test of the Survey of Income and Program Participation's (SIPP) labor force, assets, and homeownership items. For the October topical questionnaire (Topical 12), Household Pulse Survey content will be repeated using longitudinal design without the roster experiment.
The Census Household Panel is a probability-based nationwide nationally-representative survey panel designed to test the methods to collect data on a variety of topics of interest, and for conducting experimentation on alternative question wording and methodological approaches. The goal of the Census Household Panel is to ensure availability of frequent data collection for nationwide estimates on a variety of topics and a variety of subgroups of the population, meeting standards for transparent quality reporting of the Federal Statistical Agencies and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The topical survey that will field in August (Topical 10) will include a roster experiment, and content from the Household Pulse Survey (HPS) to run in parallel with the HPS. Stemming from findings on roster question wording and design from the Decennial 2030 Project 21, the primary objective of the roster experiment is to compare the final roster wording recommendations from Project 21 to the 2020 Census roster wording. The fielding of content from the Household Pulse Survey simultaneously and longitudinally in the CHP will allow methodological assessments of implications changing methodology for a program such as the HPS from a cross-sectional design to a longitudinal design.
The September topical (Topical 11) will include a test of the Survey of Income and Program Participation’s (SIPP) labor force, assets, and homeownership items. The labor force section of the A-B test aims to evaluate the effectiveness of different question formats in gathering comprehensive information about the employment, earnings, and work hours of respondents and their spouses over the past six months. For the assets content, the instrument will be used to test how response rates are affected when a single respondent is asked (a) whether anyone in the household owns a given asset/debt type and (b) total household amounts. There will also be a test of whether person-level ownership can be identified. Finally, we will measure the efficacy of asking about the total amount of loans owed on a house rather than multiple loans individually. Similarly, the October topical questionnaire (Topical 12) will repeat the Household Pulse Survey content using a longitudinal design without the roster experiment.
The original goal for the size of the Panel was 15,000 panelists and households selected from the Census Bureau’s gold standard Master Address File. This ensures the Panel is rooted in this rigorously developed and maintained frame and available for linkage to administrative records securely maintained and curated by the Census Bureau. This foundation and the incorporation of the Panel into the Title 13 infrastructure at the Census Bureau allows for the Census Bureau and partner agencies to leverage administrative records and other non-survey data in combination with data from the Panel to create a platform for a high-quality integrated data program. The recruitment operation resulted in 12,225 households included in the Panel. With the March sample replenishment, the new sample size is expected to increase to approximately 17,630 households. Panelists and households selected for the Panel were recruited from the Census Bureau's gold standard Master Address File. This ensures the Panel is rooted in this rigorously developed and maintained frame and available for linkage to administrative records securely maintained and curated by the Census Bureau. Invitations to complete the monthly surveys will be sent via email and SMS messages. Questionnaires will be mainly internet self-response. The Panel will maintain representativeness by allowing respondents who do not use the internet to respond via computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI). All panelists will receive an incentive for each complete questionnaire. Periodic replenishment samples will maintain representativeness and panelists will be replaced after a period of three years.
The Census Bureau will conduct this information collection primarily online using Qualtrics as the data collection platform. Qualtrics provides the necessary agility to deploy the Census Household Panel quickly and securely. It operates in the Gov Cloud, is FedRAMP authorized at the moderate level, and has an Authority to Operate from the Census Bureau to collect personally identifiable and Title 13-protected data.
Qualtrics is an online data collection platform that allows survey invitations to be distributed electronically via email and/or SMS. Survey invitations for the Census Household Panel will be distributed to sampled participants via letter, email, and SMS, and data collection will occur on the web (via self-response or with the assistance of a CATI operator). The data collection platform is optimized for use on a mobile device, so may be used via any type of internet access.
Household Pulse Survey:
https://www.census.gov/householdpulsedata
Census submission to OMB:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202407-0607-001 Click IC List for data collection instruments, View Supporting Statement for newly added technical documentation. Submit comments through this webpage.
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-15347
For AEA members wishing to submit comments, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806