First reason SNAP, WIC, TANF, and GA benefit receipt ended (EFSERSN1, EWICERSN1, TTANFERSN1, and TGAERSN1)

A small number of person-month records should have an in-universe value for the first reason benefit receipt ended, but instead have “not in universe” values (e.g. EFSERSN1 = .).

In months when a spell ends (e.g. EFS_EMONTH = 1-11 or RFS_CONTFLG = 1) and the reason benefit receipt stopped does not have an in-universe value (e.g. EFSERSN1 = .), we suggest data users assign a value of “other” (e.g. EFSERSN1 = 7), which is the cold deck value assigned when data are missing. 

As a result of different answer lists and top coding, the numeric value of “other” varies across the variables addressed in this user note.

First reason SNAP benefit receipt ended (EFSERSN1)

A small number of person-month records that should have been assigned a cold deck value of “other” (EFSERSN1 = 7) were erroneously set to an out of scope value (EFSERSN1 = 9). We suggest data users set the value to “other” (EFSERSN1 = 7).

First reason TANF receipt ended (TTANFERSN1)

Person- month records that should have been assigned a cold deck value of “other” (TTANFERSN1 = 5) were erroneously assigned a value of “chose not to participate” (TTANFERSN1 = 4).  We suggest data users combine these two categories.