Abstract: This paper provides a technical overview of the methods used to construct a consistent set of income variables across multiple years of the Survey of Consumer Finances. These variables are used in Changes in Income Among Senior Citizens: 1982-2018 (Cogan and Heil, 2022), which analyzes trends in senior incomes both in absolute terms and relative to younger households. We provide detailed descriptions of the methods used to address shortcomings in the data and offer additional comparisons between measurements of senior income in the Survey of Consumer Finances and the Current Population Survey.
Read the paper: The Construction of Income Data from the Survey of Consumer Finances: 1983 to 2019
