[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 232 (Monday, December 3, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 71574-71575]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-29055]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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: 2013 Current Population Survey Annual Social & Economic 
Supplement.Content Test.
    OMB Control Number: None
    Form Number(s): The automated survey instrument has no form number.
    Type of Request: New collection.
    Burden Hours: 10,000.
    Number of Respondents: 15,000.
    Average Hours Per Response: 40 minutes.
    Needs and Uses: The Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social 
and Economic Supplement (ASEC) is used to produce official estimates of 
income and poverty, and it serves as the most widely-cited source of 
estimates on health insurance and the uninsured. These statistics have 
far-ranging implications for policy and funding decisions. Alternative 
sets of questions on income and health insurance have been developed 
and are now slated for a large-scale field test to evaluate the 
questions and the estimates they generate.
    With regard to income, the CPS ASEC was converted to computer 
assisted interviewing (CAI) in 1994. This conversion, however, 
essentially took the questions and skips patterns of the paper 
questionnaire, and put them on a computer screen. Automated data 
collection methods allow for complicated skips, respondent-specific 
question wording, and carry-over of data from one interview to the 
next. The computerized questionnaire also permits the inclusion of 
several built-in editing features, including automatic checks for 
internal consistency and unlikely responses, and verification of 
answers. With these built-in editing features, errors can be caught and 
corrected during the interview itself. It has been more than 30 years 
since the last major redesign of the income questions of this 
questionnaire (1980), and the need to modernize this survey to take 
advantage of CAI technologies has become more and more apparent.
    Regarding health insurance, the CPS ASEC health insurance questions 
have measurement error due to both the reference period and timing of 
data collection. Qualitative research has

[[Page 71575]]

shown that some respondents do not focus on the calendar year reference 
period, but rather report on their current insurance status. 
Quantitative studies have shown that those with more recent coverage 
are more likely to report accurately than those with coverage in the 
more past. A new set of integrated questions on both current and past 
calendar year status should produce more accurate estimates of past 
year coverage. This is because the current coverage status questions 
may serve as an anchor to elicit more accurate reports of past year 
coverage than the standard methodology.
    In addition to making improvements to the core set of questions on 
health insurance, in 2014 the Affordable Care Act is set to go into 
effect. One of the main features of the ACA is the ``Health Insurance 
Exchange.'' These are joint federal-state partnerships designed to 
create a marketplace of private health insurance options for 
individuals and small businesses. While these Exchanges are still in 
development and states have broad flexibility in designing the 
programs, it is essential for the federal government to have a viable 
methodology in place when the Affordable Care Act goes into effect to 
measure Exchange participation, and to measure types of health coverage 
(in general) in the post-reform era.
    Lastly, the current health insurance status questions lend 
themselves to questions about whether an employer offers the employee 
health insurance. Although this set of questions is new to the CPS 
ASEC, it has been in CPS production in the Contingent Worker Supplement 
(CWS). The CWS was fielded in February of 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001 and 
2005.
    The CPS ASEC field test will be conducted by telephone from one or 
more of the Census Bureau's telephone data collection centers in March 
2013 with retired CPS sample.
    The primary purpose of the field study is to evaluate the 
redesigned questions and assess any improvements over the CPS ASEC 
status quo design. Based on the results of the content test, if results 
are favorable for the new instrument, changes may be implemented in the 
production CPS ASEC in 2014.
    Affected Public: Individuals or households.
    Frequency: One time only.
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C., 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 Jennifer Jessup, Departmental Paperwork Clearance 
Officer, (202) 482-0336, 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 email ([email protected]).

    Dated: November 27, 2012.
Gwellnar Banks,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2012-29055 Filed 11-30-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P