NBER CPS Supplements
CPS Supplement Files at NBER
This page contains an index to the NBER collection of Census/BLS format micro data
files from the Current Population Survey.
The collection includes many of the most interesting monthly
surveys, but is not intended to be comprehensive. (Basic monthly data
files are also available online.)
Additions and replacements are subject to the needs of the NBER research program.
A housing unit in the CPS is interviewed for four consecutive months and
then dropped out of the sample for the next eight months and is brought
back in the following four months. So, when the system has been in
operation for a full year, 4 of the 8 rotation groups will have been in
the survey for the same month, 1 year ago.
Matching information and Stata .do files from
NBER Working Paper t0247
by B. Madrian and L. J. Lefgren are available for March-to-March matches and
can be modified for use in other matches.
Technical Paper 63
contains more information about Design and Methodology.
The following discussion assumes that you are familiar with
the use of CPS tapes in other environments and deals only with
the NBER specific information. You will certainly have to be
familiar with a serious statistical package or programming
language to make use of these files.
All the CPS data files are ASCII files compressed with the Unix
compress command.
You can decompress them with either the standard Unix uncompress command,
DOS gzip,
or Winzip.
To check your ability to uncompress these files, download the small file
compress.zip.
This files give an example of how to read in .Z and .zip ASCII files into SAS for UNIX
without decompressing the files.
The compressed files are 15-20 Mb, and they expand to about 150-200 Mb.
SAS, SPSS, and Stata data definition file statements
are available for some files.
.
To download files in Internet Explorer, right click on them and select "Save Target As...".
If the pdf documents appear to be all blank pages or your screen just blinks, get the latest Acrobat
Reader at www.abobe.com.
All of the data files use MS-DOS line ending conventions. That is,
instead of just a line feed after each line (the Unix convention)
there is a carriage return and a line feed (the DOS convention).
This should not disturb any Unix programs, and makes
the files more accessible to DOS software. It does change the record
length for any program using fixed length records.
Select here for
more information, including a table listing the record length
and the name of any supplements that may be included with the files.
Updates and changes.
All files use the naming convention:
cpsMMMYY.typ (MMM = month, YY = year)
NBER internal users can access the data on a UNIX system at /homes/data/cps
or on an NBER PC via Network Neighborhood --> NBER --> home --> data --> cps
KEY
= Data files (zip)
= PDF Documentation (pdf)
= DOC or TXT Documentation (doc, txt)
= DDF catalogue files (ddf)
The table is also color coded to indicate the supplement of each entry.
| Annual Demographic File (March) |
Employee Benefit (Feb 90; May 83, 88; Apr 93) |
Fertility and Immigration (June) |
| Health and Benefits (Sep 94) |
Job Training (Jan 91-92) |
Work Schedules (May 91, 97, 01) |
| Pensions (May 1979) |
Schooling and Computers |
Tobacco Use (Aug 06 10; Sep 92, 95,
98; Jan 93, 96, 99, 00, 07, 11, 15 ; May 93, 96, 99, 00, 06, 10, 11, 15; Jun 01 03; Jul 14; uFeb 02 03, Nov 01 03) |
| Occupational Mobility and Job Tenure |
School Enrollment (Oct 97-) |
Veteran's (Aug 95, 01, 03, 05, 09, 11-15 ; Sep 97, 99) |
| Voting and Registration (Nov 96-on, even years ) |
Computer and Internet Use (Dec 98; Aug 00; Jul 11, 13, 15; Sep 01; Oct 10, 12; Nov 94) |
Volunteer Workers (Apr 74, Sep 02-) |
| Food Security (Dec 01- ; Apr 95, 97, 99, 01; Sep 96, 00; Aug 98) |
March/April Match: Child Support (Apr 92-on, even years) |
Lead Paint (Dec 94) Telephone |
| Year |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1962 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Part1
Part 2
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1964 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1966 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1967 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1968 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1969 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
|
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1970 |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1971 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1972 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1973 |
|
Feb |
|
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Apr |
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Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
|
Nov |
Dec |
| 1974 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
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May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1975 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1976 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
|
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1977 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
|
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
|
Nov |
Dec |
| 1978 |
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Feb |
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Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
|
Nov |
Dec |
| 1979 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
|
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1980 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
Apr |
|
|
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1981 |
|
Feb |
|
Apr |
|
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1982 |
Jan |
Feb |
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Apr |
May |
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1983 |
|
Feb |
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Apr |
|
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1984 |
|
Feb |
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Apr |
|
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
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Nov |
Dec |
| 1985 |
Jan |
Feb |
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Apr |
|
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1986 |
|
Feb |
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Apr |
|
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1987 |
|
Feb |
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Apr |
|
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1988 |
|
Feb |
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Apr |
|
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Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 1989 |
Jan |
Feb |
|
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Apr |
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Jun |
Jul |
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Sep |
|
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Dec |
| 1990 |
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May |
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Aug |
Sep |
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Dec |
| 1991 |
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Feb |
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Apr |
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Aug |
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Dec |
| 1992 |
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Feb |
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May |
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Aug |
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Dec |
| 1993 |
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Feb |
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Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
| Nov |
Dec |
| 1994 |
Jan |
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| May |
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Jul |
Aug |
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| 1995 |
Jan |
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Jul |
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Nov |
Dec |
| 1996 |
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Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
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Dec |
| 1997 |
Jan |
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Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
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Nov |
Dec |
| 1998 |
Jan |
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May |
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Jul |
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| 1999 |
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Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
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Nov |
Dec |
|
For 2000-Census based weights, 2002 NAICS-based industry codes,
2000 SOC-based occupation codes, and revised class of worker and union variables
for 2000-2002 the CPS files, please visit
CPS Extracts.
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| 2000 |
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Jul |
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Dec |
| 2001 |
Jan |
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Jul |
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| 2002 |
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May |
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Jul |
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Several major changes affected the 2003 CPS. For more information about
the changes, please visit
CPS Extracts.
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| 2003 |
Jan |
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Apr |
May |
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Jul |
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2004
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Feb |
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Jul |
Aug |
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2005
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Jan |
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Apr |
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Jun |
Jul |
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Nov |
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| 2006 |
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Feb |
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Jul |
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| 2007 |
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Feb |
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Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
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Nov |
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| 2008 |
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Feb |
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Jul |
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| 2009 |
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Feb |
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Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
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Nov |
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| 2010 |
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Feb |
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| 2011 |
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Feb |
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Apr |
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| 2012 |
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Feb |
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| 2013 |
Jan |
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Apr |
May |
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| 2014 |
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May |
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| 2015
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Apr |
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| 2016
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Feb |
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Apr |
May |
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Jul |
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Sep |
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| 2017 |
Jan |
Feb |
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Apr |
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Jul |
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Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| 2018 |
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Feb |
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Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
Matched Files
Other CPS data
More CPS data is available at our data page:
To report problems or if you have comments or suggestions, e-mail Jean Roth at jroth@nber.org
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