Economics: Select Data Series

IPUMS combines into a single database individual level samples of the U.S. population drawn from various censuses between 1850 and 1990. IPUMS strives to assign uniform codes to variables across all years to simplify comparisons between different censuses. It is a project of the Social History Research Laboratory at the University of Minnesota. Registration is required before data extraction is permitted.

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics - PSID - is the longest running longitudinal household survey in the world, conducted since 1968. It emphasizes economic and demographic data from a sample of U.S. individuals and families.

The National Data Program for the Social Sciences (General Social Survey) is both a data diffusion project and a program of social indicator research. Its data collection instrument, the General Social Survey (GSS), was fielded for the 29th time in 2012. Previously an annual survey, the GSS became biennial in 1994. The questionnaire contains a standard core of demographic and attitudinal variables, plus certain topics of special interest selected for rotation (called "topical modules"). Items that appeared on national surveys between 1973 and 1975 are replicated.

The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) program, initiated in 1983, is a longitudinal, multi-panel survey primarily of adults in households in the United States, interviewed at least nine times at four-month intervals and followed over the life of the panel. The SIPP fills the gaps that the Current Population Survey (CPS) leaves by providing data that afford a better understanding and analyses of the distribution of income, wealth, and poverty in the society, and of the effects of federal and state programs on the well-being of families and individuals.

The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a household sample survey conducted monthly by the Census Bureau to provide estimates of employment, unemployment, and other characteristics of the general labor force, estimates of the population as a whole, and estimates of various subgroups in the population.

The American Community Survey provides estimates of demographic, housing, social, and economic characteristics every year for all states, as well as for all cities, counties, metropolitan areas, and population groups.

The Penn World Table provides purchasing power parity and national income accounts converted to international prices for 189 countries/territories for some or all of the years 1950-2010. The European Union or the OECD provide more detailed purchasing power and real product estimates for their countries and the World Bank makes current price estimates for most PWT countries at the GDP level.