[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 181 (Monday, September 20, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 57253-57254]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-23338]


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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 Paperwork Reduction Act (44 
U.S.C. chapter 35).
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: 2011 Field Test of the Re-Engineered Survey of Income and 
Program Participation.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0957.
    Form Number(s): SIPP 105(L)DR(2011) Director's Letter; SIPP 
105(L)(SP)DR(2011) Director's Letter Spanish; SIPP 2011DR106(L); SIPP 
2011DR107(L); SIPP/CAPI Automated Instrument.
    Type of Request: Reinstatement of an expired collection.
    Burden Hours: 5,681.
    Number of Respondents: 5,500.
    Average Hours per Response: 1 hour.
    Needs and Uses: The U.S. Census Bureau requests authorization from 
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct the 2011 Field 
Test 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.

[[Page 57254]]

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.
    As the SIPP transitions from three interviews per year to one 
interview per year, new methods need to be tested for how to stay in 
contact with respondents so they can be located for the following 
year's interview. Once interviews have been completed for the 2011 SIPP 
field test, a recontact experiment will take place. The objectives of 
this experiment are: (1) To test how a combination of change of address 
cards mailed with or without a small monetary incentive, a newsletter 
reporting findings from the 2008 SIPP Panel, or no contact between 
interview periods, effect attrition and the ability to locate 
respondents in the second wave of interviewing (Type A and Type D wave 
2 non-response), and (2) to develop address update procedures which 
will facilitate locating original sample members who may have moved, 
and which can be implemented prior to and during the next interview 
field period.
    As part of the recontact experiment we will be mailing out a letter 
of explanation with the change of address cards. The SIPP-2011DR106(L) 
will be mailed to a subset of cases with the offer of monetary 
incentive. The SIPP-2011DR107(L) will be mailed to a subset of cases 
that will not offer a monetary incentive.
    Implementing the EHC methodology in 2011 is intended to help 
respondents recall information in a more natural ``autobiographical'' 
manner by using life events as triggers to recall other economic 
events. For example, a residence change can in many cases occur 
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 2011 Field Test instrument will be evaluated in several domains 
including field implementation issues and data comparability vis-
[agrave]-vis the SIPP 2008 Panel and administrative records. 
Distributional characteristics such as the percent of persons receiving 
TANF, Food Stamps, Medicare, who are working, who are enrolled in 
school, or who have health insurance coverage reported in the EHC will 
be compared to the same distributions from the 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 2011 Field Test 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, United States Code, Section 182.
    OMB Desk Officer: Brian Harris-Kojetin, (202) 395-7314.
    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 6616, 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: September 14, 2010.
Glenna Mickelson,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2010-23338 Filed 9-17-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P