HEALTH AND RETIREMENT STUDY Restricted Data Respondent Cross-Year Summary Earnings Data Description Version 5.2 (Final), October 2020 To the Restricted Data Investigator: This restricted data set is intended for exclusive use by you and the persons specified in the Agreement for Use of Restricted Data from the Health and Retirement Study and/or the Supplemental Agreement with Research Staff for Use of Restricted Data from the Health and Retirement Study. If there are any questions about this data set and its use, refer to the restricted data pages on the HRS Web site (https://hrs.isr.umich.edu/data-products/restricted-data). You can also contact the HRS RDA Help Desk via electronic mail (mailto:[email protected]). This document may not be reproduced without the written consent of the staff of the Health and Retirement Study, the Institute for Social Research, the University of Michigan. Table of Contents 1. Overview and Acknowledgments ....................................................................................... 2 2. Obtaining the Data ............................................................................................................... 2 2a. Access to Restricted Data ................................................................................................................... 2 2b. Restricted Data Agreement ................................................................................................................ 2 2c. Publications Based on Restricted Data ............................................................................................... 2 3. Data Set Content .................................................................................................................. 3 4. If You Need to Know More ................................................................................................... 4 4a. HRS Internet Site ................................................................................................................................. 4 4b. Contact Information ........................................................................................................................... 4 Appendix A: Installation (Traditional License Only) .............................................................. 5 A1. Distribution Set ................................................................................................................................... 5 Windows Environment ......................................................................................................................... 5 UNIX/Linux Environment ...................................................................................................................... 5 Macintosh OS X Environment (10.4.x and above)................................................................................ 5 A2. Program Statements .......................................................................................................................... 6 Using the Files with SAS ....................................................................................................................... 6 Using the Files with SPSS ...................................................................................................................... 6 Using the Files with Stata ..................................................................................................................... 6 A3. Non-Windows Environments .............................................................................................................. 6 SPSS in an OSX environment ................................................................................................................ 7 STATA in an OS X Environment ............................................................................................................ 7 Appendix B: Cohort Permission Status ................................................................................. 8 Source Information ................................................................................................................................... 9 Information Received from SSA in Spring 2019 ........................................................................................ 9 Limits for Information Obtained Through Respondent Consent Forms ................................................... 9 October 2020 1 XSumErnDD2016 1. Overview and Acknowledgments The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a national longitudinal study of the economic, health, marital, and family status, as well as public and private support systems, of older Americans. The HRS is a rich source of longitudinal, cross-sectional data for researchers and policymakers who study aging. Funding for the Health and Retirement Study is provided by the National Institute on Aging at NIH (U01 AG009740), with supplemental support from the Social Security Administration. The study is conducted by the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan. The HRS gratefully acknowledges the special assistance of the Social Security Administration’s Office of Research and Statistics for their assistance in retrieving the administrative records of HRS respondents who gave consent for those records to be used for research purposes. 2. Obtaining the Data 2a. Access to Restricted Data Although most HRS data sets are available to the public without restriction, certain HRS data sets contain sensitive respondent information and are only available under terms of a formal agreement negotiated between the researcher and HRS. Prospective users of HRS restricted data have two access options: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (recommended) Traditional Licensing Agreement (deprecated) For instructions on how to proceed, visit the HRS Restricted Data page or contact the HRS Restricted Data Applications Processing Team ([email protected]) by email. 2b. Restricted Data Agreement This restricted data set is intended for exclusive use by you and the persons specified in the Confidentiality Agreement for Use of Restricted Data from the Health and Retirement Study. Traditional licensing agreements that include multiple users are also bound by the Supplemental Agreement with Research Staff for Use of Restricted Data from the Health and Retirement Study. 2c. Publications Based on Restricted Data Your restricted data agreement specifies that you will inform HRS of any papers, publications, or presentations based on this restricted data set. Please send a copy of such publications in PDF format via e-mail to [email protected] with "Attn: Papers and Publications" in the subject line. If you wish, you may include a bibliographical reference. As an alternative, you may transmit publications in paper format by postal mail: Health and Retirement Study Attn: Papers and Publications The Institute for Social Research, Room 3450 P.O. Box 1248 Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106-1248 October 2020 2 XSumErnDD2016 3. Data Set Content Version 5.2 of the Respondent Cross-Year Summary Earnings data set contains Master Earnings File (MEF) earnings data for 27,825 respondents derived from the permission sets summarized below. See Appendix B for additional information on the timing of cohort permissions. Table 1: Record Counts Primary Permission Set Cohort Total 1992/94/96 1993/95 1998/2000 2004 20061 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 HRS 3720 0 24 2081 55 2428 1856 439 290 178 11071 AHEAD2 22 4260 23 111 11 502 284 0 0 27 5240 CODA 0 0 626 178 489 288 130 2 0 31 1744 War 0 0 386 177 373 507 286 195 154 57 2135 Baby EBB 0 0 0 507 105 518 1051 546 323 224 3273 MBB 0 0 0 0 0 0 1652 349 365 400 2766 LBB 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1596 1596 Total 3742 4260 1059 3054 1033 4243 5259 1531 1131 2513 27825 This version of the Respondent Cross-Year Summary Earnings data set contains the same categories of variables as earlier versions. The file contains 1951-2016 annual earnings data based on the most recent information received for each respondent. When information is available for an individual respondent at two or more points in time, the most recent earnings value is used. The file includes: Earnings adjusted for taxable maximum Wage quarters of coverage pattern Total QC for year Self-employment income quarters of coverage Agriculture income quarters of coverage (1955-1977) Agriculture income employment code (begins 1978) To help preserve respondent confidentiality, earnings data have been rounded to the nearest $100, except for fields that were originally between $0.01 and $49.99, which have been recoded to .N. Entries that were originally coded as 0 remain as 0. Observations that are missing due to absence of information for a given year are coded .M. The file is keyed on Household Identifier and Person Number and is based on the 2018 Tracker (Early). 1 Prospective permissions began in 2006; see Appendix B for rule change information. 2 Note: This data set treats HRS Wave 1 “overlap” cases as members of the AHEAD cohort. There were a number of original HRS Wave 1 households eligible to be either an HRS or AHEAD household. An interview was attempted for each in HRS Wave 1. Afterwards, a random sub-sampling was performed, with 60% of the cases staying in HRS and the remaining going to AHEAD. We refer to the 134 cases given over to AHEAD as the HRS/AHEAD overlap. October 2020 3 XSumErnDD2016 4. If You Need to Know More This document is intended to serve as a brief overview of the Respondent Cross-Year Summary Earnings data set. If you have questions or concerns