SSA Supplement Supporting Statement Section B (revised 8-1-14)

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Census Bureau

SSA Supplement on Retirement, Pensions, and Related Content

B. Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods

1. Universe and Respondent Selection

The SSA Supplement on Retirement, Pensions, and Related Content (SSA Supplement) respondent universe is the civilian, non-institutionalized population who completed¹ a 2014 SIPP Panel Wave 1 interview.

SSA Supplement Sample Design

The sample design for the SSA Supplement is based on the 2014 SIPP sample design (OMB number 0607-0977). The SIPP respondent universe is the civilian, non-institutionalized population based on the 2010 decennial census, which contains approximately 304.4 million individuals. The SIPP uses a multistage stratified sample of the U.S. civilian non-institutionalized population. The first stage involves the definition and division of the United States into groups of counties called the Primary Sampling Units (PSUs), which are assembled into homogeneous groups called strata. The second stage involves selection of units within the PSU.

The 2014 SIPP Panel is the first sample for the SIPP to be fielded from the 2010 redesign. The 2014 SIPP Panel sample consisted of approximately 52,000 designated LQs and yielded approximately 41,600 eligible LQs at the time of interview in 2014, of which 29,825 households were interviewed between February and June 2014. Each household contains an average of 2.1 eligible respondents (aged 15 years and older); therefore, the 2014 SIPP Panel contained approximately 62,632 survey respondents in Wave 1. The response rate for Wave 1 was 70.19%.

The SSA Supplement is specifically designed to interview respondents that completed the prior SIPP interview. The interview sample for the SSA Supplement is all members of interviewed SIPP households, and therefore is based on the SIPP 2014 address frame foundation. The interviewed SIPP household members who are 15 years old and over are contacted by telephone for the SSA Supplement interview. As in SIPP, after the initial interview, the sample is followed for the SSA Supplement. Household members from the Wave 1 SIPP interview are included in the SSA Supplement even if they have moved. The close connection between the SIPP and the SSA Supplement is a special situation. In general, the addresses selected for the 2014 SIPP sample will not be eligible to be selected for another Census Bureau demographic survey (Current Population Survey, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, National Crime Victimization Survey, Consumer Expenditure Survey, and American Housing Survey) before 5 years after the last SIPP interview.

2014 SSA Supplement Weighting

Person weights will be created for one month (either Sept. or Oct.). The weight will be the product of three components: the base weight, the household non-interview adjustment factor, and the second stage adjustment factor. The non-interview adjustment is calculated for each non-interview cell based on the following formula: Adjustment factor = sum (interviewed weights + non-interview weights)/sum(interviewed weights), for each cell. These factors are applied to the base weights. The second stage weights are calculated as a ratio adjustment of the sum of non-interview weights to the population controls and applied to each cell in six dimensions. The second stage weighting procedure consist of raking (with 400 maximum iteration and 250 tolerance level), cell collapsing and husband/wife equalization. The population estimates for either Sept. or Oct. will be used as the controls for the second stage weighting procedure.

2. Procedures for Collecting Information

In sample households, all people 15 years old and over who completed a 2014 SIPP Panel Wave 1 interview will be interviewed. The Census Bureau will use computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) to conduct the interviews. Interviewers collect the data from eligible respondents from three telephone centers² using desktop computers. Interviewing is conducted daily 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, Monday through Saturday, and 11:00 am to 9:00 pm on Sunday, in the respondent's time zone. Calls outside of these hours are by arrangement with the respondent. Call attempts are determined by the CATI Scheduler that builds a queue of valid cases based on criteria such as appointment time, respondent time zone, case status (for example, a case on hold), or parameter status (for example, a busy signal retry.) The case continues to come up in the queue until it either receives a completed interview outcome code, or it hits the maximum threshold for a parameter that closes the case. Thresholds differ depending on the parameter. For example, the maximum number of times a telephone number can get an answering machine per household is five and the maximum number of times a case can go to research is two. Since the number of eligible people, phone numbers, call attempts per person, and parameter thresholds can differ with each household, the minimum number of call attempts throughout the entire interviewing period will vary per case.

Respondents under the age of 15 will be interviewed via proxy. The SSA Supplement will be conducted from September to October of 2014. 29,825 households completed the interview for wave 1 of the 2014 SIPP Panel. We estimate that each household contains 2.1 people aged 15 and above, yielding approximately 62,632 person-level completed interviews. Interviews take approximately 30 minutes per adult on average, consequently the total annual burden for the SSA Supplement interviews will be 31,316 hours³ in FY 2014.

3. Methods to Maximize Response

For the SSA Supplement, we will make efforts to minimize non-interviews. Every household who completed a SIPP interview will receive an advance letter that explains the purpose of the survey, why the household’s cooperation is important, and how the SSA Supplement specifically relates to them. For eligible individuals who refuse, the instrument will contain a refusal conversion screen to assist the interviewer. For particularly difficult cases, WebCATI (the telephone interviewing system) will assign a refusal conversation specialist.

4. Tests of Procedures

The questions contained in the SSA Supplement were administered as part of several production SIPP panels. All new content was qualitatively tested in compliance with Census Bureau policy. The instrument underwent both a systems and verification test as part of the development phase for this data collection.

5. Contacts for Statistical Aspects and Data Collection

The Census Bureau will collect and process these data. Within the Census Bureau, please consult the following individuals for further information on their areas of expertise:

Sample Design

Tracy Mattingly Lead Scientist (SIPP)

Demographic Statistical Methods Division

301-763-6445

Mahdi S. Sundukchi SIPP Survey Design Lead

Demographic Statistical Methods Division

301-763-4228

Data Collection and Tabulation and Data Content

Jason Fields SIPP Survey Director

Office of the Associate Director for Demographic Programs

301-763-2465

Social Security Administration

Within the SSA, please consult the following individuals for further information on their areas of expertise:

Paul Davies Acting Deputy Associate Commissioner

Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics

Office of Retirement and Disability Policy

202-358-6277

Howard Iams Senior Research Advisor

Division of Policy Evaluation and Modeling

Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics

Office of Retirement and Disability Policy

202-358-6217

Attachments

A. SSA Supplement Instrument Booklet

B. SIPP-SSA(L1)2014–Director's Letter

1 By ‘completed’ we mean a complete interview as well as a completed partial interview.

2 Hagerstown, MD; Jeffersonville, IN; Tucson, AZ

3 See Part A, page 5 for a table on burden hours.