DOI: 10.3886/icpsr29645.v1
title: Current Population Survey, December 2008: Food Security Supplement
title: Version 1

description: This data collection is comprised of responses from two sets of survey questionnaires, the basic Current Population Survey (CPS) and a survey on the topic of food security in the United States, which was administered as a supplement to the December 2008 CPS questionnaire. The CPS Food Security supplement was sponsored and conducted by the United States Census Bureau for the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).The CPS, administered monthly, is a labor force survey providing current estimates of the economic status and activities of the population of the United States. Specifically, the CPS provides estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics, and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment. Data from the CPS are provided for the week prior to the survey. In December, the week containing the twelfth day of the month was the interview week. The week containing the fifth day was the reference week (i.e., the week about which the labor force questions were asked).The supplement was intended to research the full range of severity of food insecurity as experienced in United States households. The food security questions were asked of all interviewed households, as appropriate. Respondents were queried on how much the household spent for food, their use of federal and community food assistance programs, whether they were able to afford enough food, food sufficiency, and ways of coping with not having enough food. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.
description: The Food Security supplement variables can be categorized by five major sections: Food Spending (HES1A-HES8).; Minimum Food Spending Needed (HES8B-HES8D).; Food Assistance Program Participation (HES9-HESP9).; Food Sufficiency and Food Security (HESS1-HESSHM5). This section includes the 18 food security questions that are used to calculate the 12-month Food Security Scales as well as follow-up questions that are used to calculate the 30-day food security scales.; Ways of Avoiding or Ameliorating Food Deprivation -- Coping Strategies (HESC1-HESCM4).;
description: The data contain nine weight variables: Household Weight -- HWHHWGT -- Used in tallying household-level characteristics for labor force survey variables.; Family Weight -- PWFMWGT -- Used only in tallying family-level characteristics for labor force survey variables.; Longitudinal Weight -- PWLGWGT -- Found only on adult records matched from month to month (used for gross flows analysis).; Outgoing Rotation Weight -- PWORWGT -- Used for tallying information collected only in outgoing rotations.; Final Weight -- PWSSWGT -- Used for most tabulations, controlled to independent estimates for (1) States; (2) Origin, Sex, and Age; and (3) Age, Race, and Sex.; Veteran's Weight -- PWVETWGT -- Used for tallying veteran's data only.; Composited Final Weight -- PWCMPWGT -- Used to create BLS's published labor force statistics.; Supplement Household Weight -- HHSUPWGT -- Used in tallying household-level characteristics for supplement survey variables.; Supplement Person Weight -- PWSUPWGT -- Used in tallying household member-level characteristics for supplement survey variables.; Users are strongly encouraged to refer to the User Guide for additional detailed information on how to use these weights, as well as how they were derived.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Detailed information regarding the scales is located in Attachment 17 of the User Guide.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: Current Population Survey Series
description: computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI), computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) 
Information on the Federal Food Security Measurement Project, is available from, The Economic Research Service Food Security in the United States Briefing Room: http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/foodsecurity/.
The Food Security supplement items were used by the supplement sponsor to produce a scaled measure of food insecurity. Responses to individual items in the supplement may not be meaningful measures of food insecurity. Measures that combine information from multiple items (HRFS12M1 and following) are generally considered to be more reliable measures of food security and food insecurity.
Users are strongly encouraged to refer to the User Guide (produced by the Principal Investigators), which contains not only information about the basic CPS survey, but also detailed technical documentation specific to the Food Security Supplement. In particular, Attachment 8 of the User Guide contains the Food Security supplement questionnaire, and Attachment 17 contains user notes regarding the Food Security supplement.
The universe statements for each variable are defined in either the basic or supplement record layout, which are located in Attachment 6 and 7, respectively, of the User Guide.
ICPSR removed all FILLER and PADDING variables from the data. As a result, the column locations in any ICPSR-released data product (e.g., codebook and setup files) will have column locations that are not consistent with locations described in the User Guide.
description: The basic CPS universe is comprised of all persons in the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States living in households. The December 2008 supplement universe represented the full CPS sample comprised of all interviewed CPS households.
description: The CPS uses a multistage probability sample based on results of the 2000 decennial census, with coverage in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.