Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey, United States, 2018 (ICPSR 37653)

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Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

In December 2017, the Urban Institute launched the Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey (WBNS), a nationally representative, internet-based survey of nonelderly adults designed to monitor changes in individual and family well-being during a time when policymakers are considering significant changes to federal safety net programs serving low-income families. The 2018 round of the survey collects information on a broad array of topics related to health, material hardship, and the safety net, including health insurance, housing, food security, employment, family income, program participation, family financial security, disability, discrimination, substance use disorder, and immigration issues.

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For each round, a stratified random sample of approximately 7,500 adults ages 18 to 64 is drawn from the KnowledgePanel, a probability-based, nationally representative Internet panel maintained by Ipsos. The WBNS includes an oversample of adults with household incomes under 150 percent of the federal poverty level to improve the precision of estimates for this group. Current recruitment into the KnowledgePanel is based on an address-based sampling frame that covers nearly all residential addresses in the United States. In earlier periods, recruitment was carried out by telephone based on random-digit dialing sampling techniques. Approximately 55,000 U.S. households participate in the panel, including those with and without internet access. Web-enabled devices and internet access are provided to panel members if needed, and respondents can complete the online surveys in English or Spanish.

Universe View help for Universe

Household population aged 18-64

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Response Rates View help for Response Rates

The WBNS response rate is roughly four percent each round.

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2021-05-20

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Weight View help for Weight

The 2018 WBNS included an oversample of noncitizens to support analyses of current policy issues affecting immigrant families. We constructed a set of weights for analysis of adults in immigrant families, which includes 317 respondents in the noncitizen oversample and 1,633 respondents in the core sample who reported being born outside the US or living with a foreign-born relative in their household. The weights are based on the probability of selection from the KnowledgePanel and post-stratified to the characteristics of nonelderly adults in immigrant families who are English proficient or primarily speak Spanish using benchmarks from the American Community Survey. Because the survey is only administered in English or Spanish, the language criterion is used in the weighting to reflect the nature of the survey sample. For the immigrant sample, weight2, can be used to produce representative estimates of the population of adults in immigrant families.