This paper was written for presentation at the 1994 August American Statistical Association Meetings. It reports the general results of research undertaken by Census Bureau staff. The views expressed are attributable to the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Census Bureau.

The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is a complex survey conducted by the Census Bureau to provide information for federal policy makers and academic analysts on topics such as part-year poverty, government program participation and eligibility, health insurance coverage, and income distributions. The SIPP has been used as a multi-purpose survey providing cross-sectional, longitudinal and current event information. The primary goal of the survey though is a longitudinal one - select a nationally representative sample of households and follow the people in those households to assess changes in their characteristics over time. Quite often, the multi-purpose uses of the data have compromised the longitudinal uses in terms of sample size, data product availability and important longitudinal analyses.

In order to make the program more effective, the Census Bureau has recently undertaken a comprehensive reassessment and redesign of the SIPP program. This major redesign addresses problems and concerns that surfaced through SIPP's early years This reassessment is being done in conjunction with a redesign of the sample frame, stratification and selection that uses 1990 Decennial Census of Population and Housing information.