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workers in their POWPUMA

Mara Kaminowitz
over 5 years ago

Hello,

 

I am trying to extract workers at their place of work from the 1-year ACS microdata but I am having a hard time figuring out the right variables.  I have an Access database with the 1-year data so I am looking for the correct query.  If I pull all records where Employment status recode is 1 (Civilian employed, at work), 2 (Civilian employed, with a job but not at work), 4 (Armed forces, at work), and 5 (Armed forces, with a job but not at work) along with the POWPUMA number and the person weight, will that get me the correct number?

I tried getting it from iPUMS but for some reason even with selecting out only employed ESR codes I kept getting a number that looked closer to the residential population than the number of workers for each POWPUMA/county.  I used to rely on DataFerret but it no longer works on my computer at all, even using their very specific technical requirements.

 

Thanks,

Mara

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  • over 5 years ago
    Hi Mara,

    If you want to know how many people work in a specific PUMA (county/boro) then you need to use the US Population Records File PUMS (the whole US or at least include neighboring states). The reason for this is that there are people who live in state X but work in state Z. Hence, it is good to include both the PUMA and the STATE variables in your dataset if you want to know where they are coming in from.

    Also, John Grumbine is right. In order for you to count the total number of workers working in a specific POWPUMA (county/boro) of interest, you need to use both the POWPUMA (county/boro of work) and POWSP (State of work) variables.

    For example, if you want to see how many people are working in Manhattan (in the state of New York) you have to count all observations in the data with a POWPUMA = 3800 (Manhattan) AND POWSP = 36 (New York).

    I hope this helps!

    -Quan
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  • over 5 years ago
    Hi Mara,

    If you want to know how many people work in a specific PUMA (county/boro) then you need to use the US Population Records File PUMS (the whole US or at least include neighboring states). The reason for this is that there are people who live in state X but work in state Z. Hence, it is good to include both the PUMA and the STATE variables in your dataset if you want to know where they are coming in from.

    Also, John Grumbine is right. In order for you to count the total number of workers working in a specific POWPUMA (county/boro) of interest, you need to use both the POWPUMA (county/boro of work) and POWSP (State of work) variables.

    For example, if you want to see how many people are working in Manhattan (in the state of New York) you have to count all observations in the data with a POWPUMA = 3800 (Manhattan) AND POWSP = 36 (New York).

    I hope this helps!

    -Quan
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