In order to enhance data quality, and reduce respondent burden and costs, the U.S. Census Bureau redesigned the 2014 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and made changes to a variety of topics – including employment. The survey instrument also was re-engineered to include an event history calendar (EHC) for certain topics, including employment, and a one-year reference period. Altogether, these changes greatly affected the amount of data that are collected about workers, allowing for more detailed information on up to seven jobs per respondent.

This evaluation report describes the data review process for the industry and occupation content appearing on the SIPP 2014 Panel, Waves 1 and 2, and provides an assessment of the quality of the SIPP public use files (PUFs). As a result, this report will help data users better understand the SIPP. This report is broadly organized into three sections. The first section outlines the measurement and coding of the SIPP data and explores how employment-related information is captured by the interviewing instrument. Key concepts and definitions also are presented. The second section provides a narrower discussion of the data review process (including internal allocation procedures) and summarizes the two SIPP waves’ sample characteristics. The third and final section presents weighted estimates for three key variables: class of worker, industry, and occupation.