|
Availability
1964-2009
Universe
1963-1967: All Persons.
1968-1975: All Persons, excluding children having no family members.
1976-2009: All Persons.
Codes
Description
FTOTVAL reports the total income for the respondent's family. Amounts are expressed as they were reported to the interviewer (i.e., in the survey year's dollar amounts). Users may want to adjust for inflation using Consumer Price Index adjustment factors.
Comparability — General
FTOTVAL is taken directly from family record of the original CPS public use microdata samples. This variable relies on family designations identified in the original CPS data, and is the basis for the creation of the official poverty measure (available in POVERTY and CONTPOV).
FTOTVAL represents the total income from all sources for each family. The definition of family unit used by the Census Bureau differs in small ways from that used by the IPUMS. Further information on why and how this definition differs can be found on the FAMUNIT variable description.
Staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau use FTOTVAL and CUTOFF to derive official poverty measures.
Comparability with IPUMS-USA
While FTOTVAL is taken directly from the original CPS data, FTOTINC available through IPUMS-USA data has been derived based on the incomes of members of persons in each FAMUNIT as defined by the IPUMS family interrelationship variables (MOMLOC, POPLOC, and SPLOC).
|
