Income, program participation, poverty, and financial vulnerability: Research and data needs
Issue title: Assessing the need for a new nationally representative household
panel survey in the United States
Subtitle:
Guest editors: Robert Moffitt, Robert F. Schoeni, Charles Brown, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Mick P. Couper, Ana V. Diez-Roux, Erik Hurst and Judith A. Seltzer
Affiliations: Center for Poverty Research, Mathews Building, Suite 300, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0047, USA. Tel.: +1 859 257 6902; Fax: +1 859 257 6959; E-mail: jziliak@uky.edu
Abstract: This paper assesses the data infrastructure needed for future research and
policy evaluation on income, program participation, poverty, and financial
vulnerability in the United States. I present a broad-based discussion of
research needs on the long-term consequences of income inequality and
mobility, transfer-program participation and intergenerational dependence,
poverty measurement and poverty persistence, and material deprivation. I
summarize what information we currently collect in U.S. household panels,
highlighting specific challenges such as earnings nonresponse and
transfer-income underreporting. I conclude that a first priority is to
improve the quality, scale, and scope of currently fielded surveys,
including linked survey-administrative data, before embarking on a new
longitudinal panel to address research on inequality, poverty, and material
well being.
Keywords: Income inequality, intergenerational mobility, material hardship, panel data, nonresponse, top-code
