The Impact of New Disclosure Avoidance Procedures on Estimating Supplemental Poverty Rates Using Public Microdata Files

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Working Paper Number: SEHSD WP-2023-25

Introduction

In 2023, as part of ongoing disclosure avoidance modernization, the U.S. Census Bureau began partially synthesizing geographic information available in public use Current Population Survey (CPS) data. The partial synthesis expands existing disclosure avoidance practices on CPS public use data which suppressed geographic information for areas with small populations. This synthesis is not applied to internal files, thus estimates in the annual Poverty in the United States report are unaffected by this change. We test whether this new procedure impacts data user’s ability to replicate estimates produced in Poverty in the United States: 2022 compared to previous releases. The results show that implementation of additional geographic synthesis does not substantially change data users’ ability to replicate estimates using public use data.

NOTE: SPM estimates in this publication are based on published BLS thresholds at the time of its release. On July 17, 2026, BLS re-released thresholds for 2019-2024 following the discovery of coding errors. The impact of the revised thresholds on SPM poverty rates is detailed in the following working paper: https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2026/demo/sehsd-wp2026-17.html

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