ECONOMICS - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
Labor Department Undercounts Poor, Uninsured, and the Non-Employed |
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by John Schmitt and Dean Baker Center for Economic Policy Research Entered into the database on Friday, August 25th, 2006 @ 17:29:19 MST |
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Study concludes measurement problems getting worse over time. Washington, D.C.: An analysis of the nation's most important labor-market
survey concludes that official estimates of the number of Americans living in
poverty and without health insurance may significantly underestimate the true
number of poor and uninsured. According to the study, conducted by the Center
for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the measurement problems with the Current
Population Survey (CPS) have been growing, making it difficult to assess changes
in economic well being over time. "The share of Americans covered by the country's most important survey
of labor-market conditions has been declining over time," said John Schmitt,
Senior Economist at CEPR and a co-author of this report. "The group that
is falling out of the survey is economically marginalized, less likely to have
a job, less likely to have health-insurance, and more likely to be poor." Among the study's main findings: The CPS appeared to miss about 1.4 percent of the adult population, or over
2.5 million non-working adults. The size and the increase over time in the
bias in the CPS are largest for black men. The CPS overstated black male employment
by about 2.5 percentage points in 1986, rising to 3.0 percentage points in
2000, and reaching 3.5 percentage points in 2005. Since the undercounting has become more severe in the CPS in recent years,
estimates of employment rates from the CPS are biased and the bias is growing
over time. For all adults, the CPS overstated employment by about 1.1 percentage
points in 1986, growing to 1.3 - 1.4 percentage points in 2000, and about
1.7 percentage points by 2005. In 2005, the official national estimate of poverty, which is taken from the
CPS, underestimated the actual number of adults and children in poverty by
about 600,000 people (about 0.2 percentage points). The official national estimates of the population lacking health insurance
coverage in 2004 underestimated the number of adults and children without
health insurance by about 350,000 people (about 0.1 percentage points). The impact on poverty estimates for blacks and Hispanics are proportionately
much greater. In 2000, the CPS underreported the poverty rate for blacks by
0.5 - 0.7 percentage points and for Hispanics by about 0.4 percentage points. The full paper is available at http://www.cepr.net/publications/cps_declining_coverage_2006_08.pdf. _____________________________ Read from Looking Glass News The
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