This paper is intended to replace SIPP Working Paper Mo. 8401—"An Overview of the Survey of Income and Program Participation," and should provide a general introduction to the survey. It incorporates information on several changes that were made in the SIPP program after the original paper was issued in June 1984. We assume that other SIPP program changes will occur after this paper is released and hope to issue additional "Updates" as frequently as necessary to describe the current status of SIPP.

Working Paper No. 8401 was written mainly by Dawn Nelson, David McMillen, and Daniel Kasprzyk. The revisions to this paper, which resulted in Update 1, were made by Dawn Nelson. Numerous other Census Bureau staff members and SIPP data users contributed advice and assistance in making these revisions.