The March CPS is conducted every year. The first year in which the CPU was conducted was 1947, and was first made available as microdata in 1964. The main purpose of the survey is to provided estimates of employment, unemployment, and other characteristics of the US labor force. Also included in the bibliography in Section N is a list of the user documentation for the CPS data. The sampling frame for the survey consists of a list of all housing units compiled from the most recent decennial census of population and housing, supplemented by lists of newly constructed housing units that did not exist when the census was conducted.
All housing units containing one or more permanent residents are eligible for interview.
A household is defined as a group of persons or a person living alone in a housing unit. Family relationships are not taken into consideration in this definition. The CPS universe is comprised of households and persons living in households. Once the sample was selected from the sampling frame, all sampling units were eligible for interview. The sample design of the CPS based on this sampling frame is a multistage stratified probability sample of the population.