DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04151.v1
title: Current Population Survey, August 2003: Veterans 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 biennial survey on the topic of veterans in the United States, which was administered as a supplement to the August 2003 CPS questionnaire. The sponsors of the Veterans Supplement were the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), formerly the Veterans Administration, and the Department of Labor.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. All veterans aged 18 or older received questions from the Veterans Supplement, which provides estimates on the demographic and labor force characteristics of veterans who have a service-connected disability in comparison to all other veterans. The data also made distinctions between Gulf War era veterans and Vietnam theater veterans; the latter being veterans who served in Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia. Estimates were also provided on the number of veterans with or without a service-connected disability and their labor force participation rate, occupational distributions, unemployment rates, periods of military service, and use of certain educational and job training programs. The Veterans Supplement portion of the study was designed to be a self-response survey and general interviewers were instructed to make up to two personal or telephone callbacks before accepting a proxy interview.Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.
description: The data contain seven weight variables: Household Weight -- HWHHWGT -- Used for tallying household characteristics.; Family Weight -- PWFMWGT -- Used only for tallying family characteristics.; 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. Also used for tallying just labor force items.; Veteran's Weight -- PWVETWGT -- Used to tally any estimates from the Veterans Supplement data, whether or not basic labor force items were used. The veteran's weight should also be used to tally any estimates for veterans and non-veterans from the basic CPS.; Composited Final Weight -- PWCMPWGT -- Used to create BLS's published labor force statistics.; Users are strongly encouraged to refer to the User Guide for detailed information on how to use the weights, as well as how they were derived.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: Current Population Survey Series
description: computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI), computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) 
Users are strongly encouraged to refer the User Guide (produced by the Principal Investigators), which contains the questionnaire for the supplement, as well as additional detailed technical documentation regarding the study design, sampling frame used, and response rates.
The universe statements for each variable are defined in the basic and supplement record layouts found in Attachment 7 and 8, 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 CPS universe consists of all persons in the civilian noninstitutional population of the United States living in households. The August 2003 supplement universe represents the full CPS sample comprising all household members aged 18 years and older.
description: A multistage probability sample based on the 1990 decennial census, with coverage in all 50 states and the District of Columbia was selected to represent the universe of approximately 57,000 households.