Employment Variables. Employment questions were asked of all persons 16 years and older at the time of the interview. Employment variables consist of person-level indicators such as employment status and job- related variables such as hourly wage. All job-specific variables refer to a person’s current main job. The current main job, defined by the respondent, indicates the main source of employment. Employment variables included on the Panel 18 Round 3/Panel 19 Round 1 2014 release are: EMPST13, HRWAG13X, HRWGRD13, HRWAY13, HOUR13, HELD13X, OFFER13X, NUMEMP13 and SELFCM13. Most employment variables pertain to status as of the date of the interview. Logical edits were performed on variables that indicate whether health insurance is held or offered at a current main job. In addition, some wage information was logically edited for consistency. Edits were performed under these circumstances: • in some cases where wages reported as less than $1.00 per hour are updated in a subsequent round to greater than $1.00, and the wage increased by a factor of 10 or 100 (for example, if a Round 4 wage is updated to $20.00, the Round 3 wage of $0.20 could logically be updated to $20.00); in some of these cases, additional comments may have also indicated an error; and • in some cases where wages changed substantially from round to round and a keying error was evident (for example, ‘the number of hours on which the salary is based’ is updated from ‘40’ to ‘4’; the ‘4’ could logically be updated to ‘40’). In all cases that result in an edit, a complete review of wage and employment history is performed; in some cases, comparisons are made to employment at similar establishments within the MEPS as well as to data reported and summarized by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When missing, wage values were imputed for certain persons’ hourly wage; however, there was no editing performed on any values reported by the respondent (except as noted above). Hourly wages greater than or equal to $73.47 were top-coded to –10. The number of employees variable was top-coded at 500. Employment Status (EMPST13) Employment status was asked for all persons aged 16 or older. Responses to the employment status question were: “currently employed” if the person had a job at the interview date, “has a job to return to” if the person did not work during the reference period but had a job to return to as of the interview date, “employed during the reference period” if the person had no job at the interview date but did wor...
Employment Variables. Employment questions were asked of all persons 16 years and older at the time of the interview. Employment variables consist of person-level indicators such as employment status and job- related variables such as hourly wage. All job-specific variables refer to a person’s current main job. The current main job, defined by the respondent, indicates the main source of employment. Employment variables included on the Panel 7 Round 3/Panel 8 Round 1 2003 release are: EMPST13, HRWAG13X, HRWGRD13, HRWAY13, HOUR13, HELD13X, OFFER13X, NUMEMP13 and SELFCM13. Most employment variables pertain to status as of the date of the interview. With the exception of health insurance held or offered from a current main job, no attempt has been made to logically edit any employment variables. When missing, values were imputed for certain persons’ hourly wage; however, there was no editing performed on any values reported by the respondent. Hourly wages greater than or equal to $55.29 were top-coded to –10. The number of employees variable was top-coded at 500. Employment Status (EMPST13) Employment status was asked for all persons aged 16 or older. Responses to the employment status question were: “currently employed” if the person had a job at the interview date, “has a job to return to” if the person did not work during the reference period but had a job to return to as of the interview date, “employed during the reference period” if the person had no job at the interview date but did work during 2003, and “not employed with no job to return to” if the person did not have a job at the interview date, did not work during the reference period, and did not have a job to return to. These responses are mutually exclusive. A current main job was defined for persons reporting that they were currently employed and who identified a current main job, and for persons who reported and identified a job to return to. Therefore, job-specific information, such as hourly wage, exists for persons not presently working at the interview date but who have a job to return to. Hourly Wage (HRWAG13X, HRWGRD13, and HRWAY13) Hourly wage was asked of all persons who reported a current main job that was not self- employment (SELFCM13). For reasons of confidentiality, the hourly wage variable (HRWAG13X) was top-coded. A value of –10 indicates that the hourly wage was greater than or equal to $55.29. The hourly wage on this file (HRWAG13X) should be considered along with its accompanying variables HRWGRD1...
