This data collection is comprised of data from the January, May, July, and November iterations of the 2005 Current Population Survey (CPS). In each of these months, two sets of questions were administered: the basic CPS questions, and a supplemental survey questionnaire on the topics of unemployment insurance and unemployment compensation. The supplement interviews were conducted in two rotations of four separate months (January, May, July, and November) in 2005 then merged into one dataset.

The CPS, administered monthly, is a labor force survey providing current estimates of the economic status and activities of the population of the United States. Specifically, the CPS provides estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment. Data from the CPS are provided for the week prior to the survey.

The supplement was designed for proxy responses, meaning a single respondent could provide answers for all eligible household members, provided the respondent was a household member and met the sampling universe criteria. The supplement was asked of persons in the labor force aged 16 years and older, who met one of the following specific labor force conditions: (1) unemployed individual on layoff, (2) unemployed job seeker who worked in the last 12 months, (3) unemployed job seeker who last worked more than 12 months ago, (4) unemployed job seeker who worked before beginning to search for a job, but responded with "refuse," "don't know," or "blank" to the CPS labor force item of when last worked, and (5) individual not currently classified as unemployed but has not worked in the last 12 months. If any person in a household was eligible for the supplement, then the entire household was included in the dataset.

The supplement contained person-level questions structured to determine whether or not an individual had applied for unemployment compensation. Individuals who had applied for compensation were asked if they had received the compensation. If they had not received any compensation, then the individuals were asked why they had not received the compensation. Data are also provided on the number of unemployed persons. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.