Estimation of the Difference of Small-Area Parameters from Different Time Periods

• Activity Number: 78
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 9, 2015 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Ryan Janicki*
• Companies: U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: small area estimation ; SAIPE ; interval estimation

Abstract

The U. S. Census Bureau's Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program provides estimates of poverty within school districts, counties and states for different age groups. Currently, the SAIPE program uses the current year's data for estimation of small area means. However, there is potential for improvement of the mean squared error of point predictions of the current year by using multiple years of survey data. In addition, incorporating data from multiple annual surveys allows for inference on the change in small area means over time. There are two main goals of this paper: the first is to investigate potential gains in efficiency using multiple years of survey data for estimation of a small area parameter. The second goal is to estimate the increase or decrease over time of a small area parameter, and to construct valid credible intervals for the change over time. An example using state-level SAIPE data is presented.