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This data collection is comprised of responses from two sets of survey questionnaires, the basic Current Population Survey (CPS) and a supplemental survey on the topic of cell phone use in the United States, which was primarily administered in February 2004. An additional sample of respondents was given the supplemental survey with the November 2004 CPS.

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. The CPS is conducted in approximately 56,000-57,000 households.

The Cell Phone supplement contained household-level questions and provides data about household use of regular landline telephones and household use of cell phones. Respondents were specifically asked about the amount of cell phone usage, the number of landlines in the home, the different uses for the landlines (e.g., for computer lines or fax machines), how many members of the household had a working cell phone number, how many cell phones each member of the household had, whether the cell phones were answered by more than one household member, and the number of the calls the household received via cell phone.

Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.

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.