Comparing Measures: Child care costs, CPS, and SIPP

As part of the Census Bureau's mission to develop a supplemental poverty measure, a colleague and I recently completed a working paper comparing child care costs between the 2010 Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) and the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Child Care topical module.

The CPS ASEC is one of the main surveys used by the Census Bureau (and the bench mark for much of the federal government) to measure poverty. Child care expenses are an important part of the supplemental poverty measure and it is important that accurate data is collected. New questions regarding child care costs were added to the 2010 CPS ASEC. Our paper compare those results with SIPP (the best source of child care related expenses).

We found that costs estimates collected by CPS ASEC were similar to SIPP, with a few limitations.

The full paper can be found here.