Description
For all persons, INCINT reports the total taxable interest income they received from savings accounts, bonds, NOW accounts, money market accounts, or similar types of investments during the current calendar year. Persons were instructed to report only their portion of any interest income from joint accounts. Using the reported income information, annual income amounts were then edited and imputed for every record on the full-year file. Please refer to the IPUMS user note on Income Data in MEPS for more information on the collection, editing (including top- and bottom-coding), and imputation of income variables in MEPS, as well as changes to the target population for income data collection over time. Users may also be interested in the data quality flag, QINCINT, which reports the editing methods for used for INCINT.
If respondents needed more information about what types of income to report as interest income, they were provided with the additional guidance: "Include interest income from seller-financed mortgages, banks, savings and loan associations, money market certificates, credit unions, savings bonds, etc. These amounts can be found on forms 1099-INT or 1099-OID."
Information on the IPUMS defined-universe for this variable
Users may wish to note that while IPUMS defines the universe for this variable as all persons, certain persons were explicitly targeted to answer questions about specific income sources. In addition to the target population of persons who were asked specifically about interest income, all persons in the household were eligible to list additional income from "other" sources, which includes income from sources previously asked about in the survey (such as interest income). It is unclear if interest income reported as an "other" income source is counted in interest income or "other" income. Because all persons could technically report interest income via the "other" income questionnaire item, IPUMS staff report the universe for INCINT as being "All Persons." Users may also wish to note that in the original public use MEPS data files, no income variables have cases explicitly coded as out of universe; both persons who directly report earning zero dollars of income from a source and persons who are not explicitly asked about that income source have values of zero.
INCINT is an 8-digit numeric variable with 2 implied decimals. That is, values of 01234567 should be interpreted as 12345.67. The command files delivered with IPUMS extracts automatically divide INCINT by 100, so no further adjustment is needed.
999999.96: Not in Universe
999999.97: Unknown-refused
999999.98: Unknown-not ascertained
999999.99: Unknown-don't know
Comparability
While all persons could report interest income regardless of age and tax filing status if they reported it as an "other" income source, certain persons were explicitly asked questions about interest income. The persons specifically targeted to answer these questions changes over time, with an expansion of the target population beginning in 2002. For more information on how income data were collected by MEPS and changes to the target population for these questions over time, please see the IPUMS user note on Income Data in MEPS.
Beginning to 1999, persons could only report income in full dollar amounts. Prior to 1999, persons could report income in dollars and cents.
Universe
- 1996-2022:
Availability
- 1996-2022
Weights
- 1996-2022 : PERWEIGHT
