99999999 = N.I.U. (Not in Universe)
99999998 = Missing (1962-1964 only)
Values can be negative.

The Census Bureau applies different disclosure avoidance measures across time for individuals with high income in this variable. Detailed explanations of these methods, topcodes, and replacement value and swap value thresholds are available here.

Description

INCFARM indicates each respondent's net pre-income-tax earnings as a tenant farmer, sharecropper, or operator of his or her own farm during the previous calendar year. INCFARM collects income information for self-employed persons who had their own farms. Income earned as an employee on a farm is contained in the variable INCWAGE.

Amounts are expressed as they were reported to the interviewer; users must adjust for inflation using Consumer Price Index adjustment factors.

For ASEC samples 1988-onward, INCFARM is derived from a Census recode variable. The topcoded components of INCFARM are OINCFARM and INCLONGJ. OINCFARM is always a component of INCFARM. When SRCEARN indicates that INCLONGJ is earned from farm self-employment, INCLONGJ is an additional component of INCFARM.

Comparability

Along with the effects of inflation and shifts in the universe of this variable, values for INCFARM may be affected by changes in question wording over time.

Conceptually, the INCFARM figure should be the amount earned after subtracting farming expenses from gross receipts. In 1962, the survey questionnaire asked how much the respondent earned "by working on his own farm." For 1963-1974, interviewers asked about "net income" from the individual's own farm. For 1975-1979, the survey questionnaire asked whether an individual received any money in income from his own farm and then asked how much the person received "after expenses." Later years asked about "earnings" or "net earnings" "after expenses."

Beginning in 1988, those who reported self-employment incomes from their own farms were asked a follow-up question about the receipt of income "from agricultural work done for others, recreational service, or government farm programs other than loans." This follow-up question may have elicited additional reported earnings for INCFARM that might have been missed in earlier years.

Comparability with IPUMS-USA

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables

• UH_INCFRM_A1
• UH_INCFRM_A10
• UH_INCFRM_A2
• UH_INCFRM_A3
• UH_INCFRM_A4
• UH_INCFRM_A5
• UH_INCFRM_A6
• UH_INCFRM_A7
• UH_INCFRM_A8
• UH_INCFRM_A9