Although the Current Population Surveys (CPS) are an important source of information on the demographics, labor force characteristics, and other aspects of the U.S. population, the CPS files released by the Census Bureau are difficult to use. While new software has dramatically simplified and speeded up the extraction of data from the historical CPS files, the software is available only on CD and, as a practical matter, useful only to those with access to statistical software on their personal computer. This project will make it possible for those who lack statistical software to produce customized tables, graphs, and sophisticated statistical analyses of CPS data directly over the Internet, as well as to download extracts of CPS data. To these ends, the proposed project will complete a user-friendly interface that will access two existing products: (1) a data base of all march CPS files from 1962-1997, as well as other historical monthly CPS files, together with associated documentation and search software, and (2) the proprietary statistical software program Stata, which will be utilized for formulating new variables, extracting data, and performing a variety of statistical procedures.
The proposed system will enable users of the Internet to analyze and extract data from the Current Population Surveys. As such, the system should appeal to researchers, newspaper and magazine publishers, insurance companies, and other businesses that may desire tabulations or analysis of demographic or labor force data but may lack the desire or ability to use specialized statistical software. It should also be of interest to those who wish to make CPS data extracts or perform analysis on only an occasional basis.
