[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 146 (Friday, July 31, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 38167-38169]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-18206]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of 
information under the provisions of the

[[Page 38168]]

Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. chapter 35).
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: 2010 Dress Rehearsal of the Redesigned Survey of Income & 
Program Participation.
    Form Number(s): SIPP 2010DR105(L) Director's Letter; SIPP/CAPI 
Automated Instrument.
    OMB Control Number: None.
    Type of Request: New collection.
    Burden Hours: 5,376.
    Number of Respondents: 10,752.
    Average Hours Per Response: 30 minutes.
    Needs and Uses: The U.S. Census Bureau requests authorization from 
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct the 2010 dress 
rehearsal for the Re-engineered Survey of Income and Program 
Participation (SIPP).
    The Census Bureau's SIPP CAPI interview will use an event history 
calendar (EHC) interviewing method and a 12-month, calendar-year 
reference period in place of the current SIPP questionnaire approach 
with a sliding 4-month reference period. The Census Bureau is re-
engineering the SIPP to accomplish several goals including improving 
the collection instrument and processing system, development of the 
EHC, use of the administrative records data, and increased stakeholder 
interaction.
    The SIPP represents a source of information for a wide variety of 
separate topics to be integrated to form a single and unified database 
in order to examine the interaction between tax, transfer, and other 
government and private policies. Government domestic policy formulators 
depend heavily upon the SIPP information to determine the effect of tax 
and transfer programs on the distribution of income received directly 
as money or indirectly as in-kind benefits. They also need improved and 
expanded data on the income and general economic and financial 
situation of the U.S. population. The SIPP has provided these kinds of 
data on a continuing basis since 1983, by measuring levels of economic 
well-being and changes in these levels over time.
    The main objective of the SIPP has been to provide accurate and 
comprehensive information about the income and program participation of 
individuals and households in the United States. The survey's mission 
is to provide a nationally representative sample for evaluating: (1) 
Annual and sub-annual income dynamics, (2) movements into and out of 
government transfer programs, (3) family and social context of 
individuals and households, and (4) interactions among these items. The 
re-engineering of SIPP pursues these objectives in the context of 
several goals--cost reduction and improved accuracy, relevance, 
timeliness, reduced burden on respondents, and accessibility. The Re-
engineered SIPP will collect detailed information on cash and non-cash 
income (including participation in government transfer programs) one 
time per year. A major use of the SIPP has been to evaluate the use of 
and eligibility for government programs and to analyze the impacts of 
options for modifying them.
    A key component of the re-engineering process involves the proposed 
shift from the every-four-month data collection schedule of traditional 
SIPP to an annual data collection schedule for the re-engineered 
survey. To accomplish this shift with minimal impact on data quality, 
the Census Bureau proposes employing the use of an event history 
calendar (EHC) to gather SIPP data. The Re-engineered SIPP will 
interview respondents in one year intervals, collecting data for the 
previous calendar year as the reference period. The content of the Re-
engineered SIPP will combine the content of the 2008 Panel SIPP core as 
well as selected topical module questions. The Re-engineered SIPP will 
not contain free-standing topical modules. The EHC will allow recording 
dates of events and spells of coverage and should provide monthly 
transitions of program receipt and coverage, labor force transitions, 
health insurance transitions, and others. The 2010 Re-engineered SIPP 
dress rehearsal will also involve recording a small number of the field 
interviews for research purposes. Recorded verbal consent will be 
obtained during the interview prior to recording.
    The 2010 Re-engineered SIPP dress rehearsal will be conducted from 
January 2010 to March 2010. Approximately 8,000 households are selected 
for the 2010 Re-engineered SIPP dress rehearsal, of which, 5,120 
households are expected to be interviewed. We estimate that each 
household contains 2.1 people aged 15 and above, yielding approximately 
10,752 person-level interviews in the dress rehearsal. Interviews take 
30 minutes on average. The total annual burden for the 2010 Re-
engineered SIPP dress rehearsal interviews will be 5,376 hours in FY 
2010.
    The EHC methodology is intended to help respondents recall 
information in a more natural ``autobiographical'' manner by using life 
events as triggers to other economic events. For example, a residence 
can change and in many cases occurs contemporaneously with a change in 
employment. The entire process of compiling the calendar focuses, by 
its nature, on consistency and sequential order of events, and attempts 
to correct for otherwise missing data. For example, if the respondents 
are unemployed, they may then look for a job, and then become employed.
    The 2010 dress rehearsal instrument will be evaluated in several 
domains including field implementation issues and data comparability 
vis-[agrave]-vis SIPP 2008 and administrative records. Distributional 
characteristics such as the percent of persons with TANF, Food Stamps, 
Medicare, who are working, who are enrolled in school, or who have 
health insurance coverage from the EHC will be compared to the same 
distributions from 2008 SIPP Panel. The primary focus will be to 
demonstrate to data users that the new instrument yields data for low-
income programs that are of sufficient quality. The field test sample 
is focused in low income areas in order to increase the ``hit rate'' of 
households likely to participate in government programs. In general, 
there are two ways we will evaluate data quality:
    (1) We will compare monthly estimates from the field test to 
estimates from parallel sample areas in the 2008 SIPP panel for 
characteristics such as participation in Food Stamps, TANF, SSI, WIC, 
and Medicaid. To the extent those estimates are reasonably aligned with 
each other, we can assume that data quality is reasonably comparable. 
Misalignment of the estimates, and especially misalignment in the 
direction of the EHC estimates being consistently lower than the SIPP 
estimates, would be worrisome, because it would be suggestive of (not 
definitive evidence of) reduced data quality in the EHC.
    (2) For a small subset of characteristics, and for a subset of 
sample areas, we will have access to administrative record data. These 
data will permit a more objective data quality assessment.
    Results from both the 2010 dress rehearsal and the 2008 SIPP Panel 
will be used to inform final decisions regarding the design, content, 
and implementation of the re-engineered SIPP for production beginning 
in 2013.
    Affected Public: Individuals or households.
    Frequency: One time.
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C. Section 182.
    OMB Desk Officer: Brian Harris-Kojetin, (202) 395-7314.

[[Page 38169]]

    Copies of the above information collection proposal can be obtained 
by calling or writing Diana Hynek, Departmental Paperwork Clearance 
Officer, (202) 482-0266, Department of Commerce, Room 7845, 14th and 
Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet at 
[email protected]).
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice 
to Brian Harris-Kojetin, OMB Desk Officer either by fax (202-395-7245) 
or e-mail ([email protected]).

    Dated: July 27, 2009.
Glenna Mickelson,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. E9-18206 Filed 7-30-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P