Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2010: Interview Survey and Detailed Expenditure Files (ICPSR 32483)

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The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) program provides a continuous and comprehensive flow of data on the buying habits of American consumers including data on their expenditures, income, and consumer unit (families and single consumers) characteristics. These data are used widely in economic research and analysis, and in support of revisions of the Consumer Price Index.

The CE program is comprised of two separate components (each with its own questionnaire and independent sample), the quarterly Interview Survey and the Diary Survey (ICPSR 32482). This data collection contains the quarterly Interview Survey data, which was designed to collect data on major items of expense which respondents could be expected to recall for 3 months or longer. These included relatively large expenditures, such as those for property, automobiles, and major durable goods, and those that occurred on a regular basis, such as rent or utilities. The Interview Survey does not collect data on expenses for housekeeping supplies, personal care products, and nonprescription drugs, which contribute about 5 to 15 percent of total expenditures.

The microdata in this collection are available as SAS, STATA, SPSS data sets or ASCII text and comma-delimited files. The 2010 Interview Survey release contains seven groups of Interview data files (FMLY, MEMB, MTAB, ITAB, ITAB_IMPUTE, FPAR, and MCHI), 50 EXPN files, and processing files.

The FMLY, MEMB, MTAB, ITAB, and ITAB_IMPUTE files are organized by the calendar quarter of the year in which the data were collected. There are five quarterly data sets for each of these files, running from the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011. The FMLY file contains consumer unit (CU) characteristics, income, and summary level expenditures; the MEMB file contains member characteristics and income data; the MTAB file contains expenditures organized on a monthly basis at the Universal Classification Code (UCC) level; the ITAB file contains income data converted to a monthly time frame and assigned to UCCs; and the ITAB_IMPUTE file contains the five imputation variants of the income data converted to a monthly time frame and assigned to UCCs.

The FPAR and MCHI datasets are grouped as 2-year datasets (2009 and 2010), plus the first quarter of the 2011. The FPAR file contains CU level data about the Interview survey, including paradata collected about the interview within the interview collection instrument (CAPI). This data includes information on the amount of time required to collect each interview and interview section, as well as other interviewer entered information about the resulting survey. The MCHI file contains data about each interview contact attempt, including reasons for refusal and times of contact. Both FPAR and MCHI files contain five quarters of data.

Each of the 50 EXPN files contains five quarters of data. The EXPN files contain data directly derived from their respective questionnaire sections.

The processing files enhance computer processing and tabulation of data, and provide descriptive information on item codes. The processing files are: (1) aggregation scheme files used in the published consumer expenditure survey interview tables and integrated tables (ISTUB and INTSTUB), (2) a UCC file that contains UCCs and their abbreviated titles, identifying the expenditure, income, or demographic item represented by each UCC, (3) a vehicle make file (CAPIVEHI), and (4) files containing sample programs. The processing files are further explained in the Interview User Guide, Section III.F.6. PROCESSING FILES. There is also a second user guide, "User's Guide to Income Imputation in the CE", which includes information on how to appropriately use the imputed income data.

Demographic and family characteristics data include age, sex, race, marital status, and CU relationships for each CU member. Income information, such as wage, salary, unemployment compensation, child support, and alimony, as well as information on the employment of each CU member age 14 and over was also collected.

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