Description

For persons who reported receiving federal or state unemployment compensation, SRCUNEMP reports on the receipt of additional unemployment income from supplemental unemployment benefits and/or union unemployment or strike benefits during the previous calendar year.

The term "supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB)" was not defined in the course of the ASEC CPS interview. In other contexts, the words "supplemental unemployment benefits" may refer to either: 1) government income transfers extending additional weeks of coverage to persons whose regular unemployment compensation benefits have run out (e.g., under the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act in place from 1991 to 1994); or 2) to employer-provided payments that are written into private employment contracts and augment the amount (and not necessarily the length) of concurrent government unemployment insurance benefits. While the use of the acronym SUB suggests the question was intended to refer to the second meaning, some respondents may instead have responded in terms of their receipt of extended unemployment benefits from the state or federal government.

Respondents were first questioned about whether they had received any state or federal unemployment compensation during the previous year. Only those who gave an affirmative answer to this question were further queried about whether they had received supplemental unemployment benefits, union unemployment benefits, or strike benefits. Thus, all persons who reported this additional unemployment income (codes 1, 2, and 3 in SRCUNEMP) had also received state or federal unemployment compensation; however, only a fraction of those receiving state or federal unemployment compensation also received additional unemployment income from the sources covered by the SRCUNEMP variable.

Comparability

This variable is comparable over time.

The total amount of unemployment compensation received from any and all sources--from government unemployment compensation benefits, supplemental unemployment benefits, union unemployment benefits, and/or strike benefits--is reported in INCUNEMP for 1988 forward. It is not possible to isolate the relative amount of unemployment income attained from state and federal unemployment compensation versus the amount attained through the sources (supplemental unemployment benefits, union unemployment benefits, and strike benefits) documented by the SRCUNEMP variable. Researchers can, however, analyze the characteristics of the recipients of supplemental unemployment benefits and/or union unemployment benefits and strike benefits.

The only information on unemployment income available for the pre-1988 period is included in the dichotomous variable GOTUNEMP. For 1976-1987, GOTUNEMP identifies persons who had received income from unemployment compensation during the previous calendar year.

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables

• UH_INCSU2_A1
• UH_INCSU2_A2
• UH_INCSU3_A1
• UH_INCSU3_A2