For the 2008 American Community Survey (ACS), changes were made to the questionnaire that modified and improved existing questions for several subject areas.  In particular, an improved series of labor force questions was introduced to better capture data on employment status.  Prior research and analysis of employment data from the ACS revealed that employment levels were underestimated and unemployment levels were overestimated relative to benchmark data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) or Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This report provides a summary of the rationale for the question change and presents the specific changes made to the series of labor force questions capturing employment status data.  Second, the report presents the anticipated impact on employment status data from the questionnaire change, in addition to discussing characteristics of those respondents answering the revised question sequence.  Third, benchmark comparisons are made to both CPS and LAUS data for the years 2007, 2008, and 2009.  Lastly, employment status data by mode of collection is presented to examine the role changing mode proportions may have played in explaining the differences between 2007 and 2008, in addition to presenting preliminary modeling results evaluating the impact of the question change.