Program Misreporting and Its Effects on Measures of Poverty and the Distribution of Income

• Activity Number: 120
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 4, 2014 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Nikolas Mittag*+ and Bruce Meyer
• Companies: CERGE-EI/Charles University and University of Chicago
• Keywords: measurement error ; misreporting ; imputations ; poverty ; income support programs ; income distribution

Abstract

We examine the extent of misreporting of transfer program receipt in household surveys and its consequences for distributional analyses using linked administrative and survey data. We link administrative data for food stamps, TANF, general assistance, and subsidized housing from New York State to the Current Population Survey, the American Community Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We examine the extent of false negative and false positive reports and the association of survey errors with household and interview characteristics including imputation status. We use our linked data to examine the poverty reducing and distributional effects of income support programs during the great recession. Most studies rely on survey reports that suffer from misreporting or on administrative records with limited income and demographic information. We use our unique data to analyze what share of the drop in income of disadvantaged households during the recession was replaced by safety net programs and how much they reduced poverty. We also examine whether the programs interact to form an effective safety net or whether some households or demographic groups are missed.