From 2014 Wave 1 through 2021, a processing error affected the creation of the monthly Social Security amount variable (TSSSAMT). This issue is resolved in the 2022 SIPP. The SIPP instrument asks about the size of monthly gross Social Security payments, that is, amounts before any Medicare deductions are taken out. However, a processing error treated these reported amounts as net payments, meaning that the values of Medicare Part B, C, and D deductions (ESSPARTBKNOW, TSSPARTCAMT, TSSPARTDAMT) were added to the initial Social Security payment value reported to create gross amounts. Because of this error in processing, values in the TSSSAMT variable were too large due to double-counting of the value of these deductions. This error had downstream impacts on income and poverty recodes. More information about the impacts on poverty can be found in the user note titled 2022 SIPP: Social Security Processing Error and its Impact on Poverty Estimates. The updated annual and monthly poverty rates following the implementation of a post-hoc Social Security Processing Error correction can be found in the tables titled Corrected Annual and Monthly SIPP Poverty Rates: 2014-2022.

Users can approximate a corrected monthly gross Social Security check value by subtracting the values of ESSPARTBKNOW, TSSPARTCAMT, and TSSPARTDAMT from TSSSAMT at months in which TSSSAMT is greater than 0. These deduction values could similarly be subtracted from relevant income recodes (e.g. TPTOTINC, etc.) at months in which TSSSAMT is greater than 0 to generate revised estimates. Weighted estimates generated via this adjustment will be approximations of what the estimates would have been without this processing error due to additional edits for reasonableness that occur following the processing error, capping of values prior to release for disclosure purposes, and the inclusion of household poverty status in the weighting scheme for the SIPP. This correction represents the best available correction for those making use of these variables.

This processing error is resolved in the 2022 SIPP, but users should bear this correction in mind when generating estimates of benefit receipt, income, and/or poverty from the 2014-2021 SIPP files.