Note to Consumer Expenditure Public Use Microdata users
To users of the 2005 Consumer
Expenditure Survey Public Use Microdata Files:
A problem has been discovered in the CE 2005Q3 Interview MTAB file microdata with regards to the variable QREC3MCX. This
variable refers to the consumer units expenditures on records, CDs, and
audio tapes, and it had been incorrectly mapped to UCC 310342 (which was
discontinued in 2005Q2) instead of the replacement UCC 310340. The correct
sum of expenditures for UCC 310340 is $66,223.
The following FMLY file summary variables were incorrectly calculated for
2005Q3, as they are derived from expenditures contained in UCC 310340:
Main Summary Expenditure variables
TVRDIOPQ and TVRDIOCQ
ENTERTPQ and ENTERTCQ
TOTEXPPQ and TOTEXPCQ
TOTEX4PQ and TOTEX4CQ
Summary Outlay variables
EENTRMTP and EENTRMTC
ETOTALP and ETOTALC
ETOTAPX4 and ETOTACX4
Adding the correct values for UCC 310340 will result in the means of the
summary variables increasing by $8.88, when all observations for the quarter
are used in the mean calculation.
Users can fix the variable QREX3MCX in the MTAB file for 2005Q3 by simply
changing the UCC code in the data file to 310340 wherever it appears as
310342. For the 14 aforementioned summary variables, users can request
addendum files in ASCII text format with NEWID included so that the corrected
values of the summary variables in can be added in with the fmli053 data
file.
To users of 1999-2004 Consumer
Expenditure Survey Public Use Microdata Files:
The FMLY files for the 1999-2004 releases contain errors in calculating
the travel summary expenditure variables TTRANPRP and TTRANPRC. Since these
variables are components in the total summary expenditure variables TTOTALP
and TTOTALC, these total summary expenditure variables are also affected by
the error. (Note for the 2004 release: Only the original 2004 release is
affected by this error (release dated January 31, 2006). The 2004 v2 release
of data has the corrected calculations (release dated October 18, 2006). All
releases of data from 2005 onwards will have the correct data for these
variables)
TTRANPRP and TTRANPRC were incorrectly calculated as:
TTRANPRP = TGASMOTP
TTRANPRC = TGASMOTC
The correct calculations of these summary variables are provided below:
TTRANPRP = TGASMOTP + TVRENTLP + TTRNTRIP
TTRANPRC = TGASMOTC + TVRENTLC + TTRNTRIC
The corrected means (over 5 quarters) for these variables are as follows:
Year TTRANPRP TTRANPRC
1999 $73.79 (not $12.17) $45.80 (not $7.57)
2000 $82.53 (not $14.15) $47.24 (not $7.86)
2001 $77.44 (not $14.53) $43.37 (not $7.71)
2002 $76.17 (not $13.96) $40.19 (not $7.94)
2003 $72.31 (not $13.67) $40.85 (not $7.46)
2004 $83.85 (not $15.14) $48.18 (not $9.00)
Users can make the corrections to these variables by adding the missing
columns of data (TVRENTLP TVRENTLC and TTRNTRIP TTRNTRIC) with the incorrect versions
of TTRANPRP TTRANPRC and TTOTALP TTOTALC. The calculations follow:
Corrected TTRANPRP = TTRANPRP + TVRENTLP + TTRNTRIP
Corrected TTRANPRC = TTRANPRC + TVRENTLC + TTRNTRIC
Corrected TTOTALP = TTOTALP + TVRENTLP + TTRNTRIP
Corrected TTOTALC = TTOTALC + TVRENTLC + TTRNTRIC
We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. If you have
any questions, please feel free to contact us by telephone at (202) 691-6900
or by email at cexinfo@bls.gov.
Last Modified Date: July 13, 2007