Real-Time Population Survey

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Alexander Bick, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Research Division; Adam Blandin, Virginia Commonwealth University; Karel Mertens, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Version: View help for Version V7

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
rps_data_release_v4.1.csv	text/csv	15.9 MB	11/08/2022 10:30:AM
rps_data_release_v4.1.dta	application/x-stata-dta	19.3 MB	11/08/2022 12:17:PM
rps_data_release_v5.2.csv	text/csv	152 MB	05/22/2025 10:07:AM
rps_data_release_v5.2.dta	application/x-stata-dta	34.9 MB	05/22/2025 10:06:AM
rps_documentation_v4.0.pdf	application/pdf	101.3 KB	11/02/2022 01:40:PM
rps_documentation_v5.1.pdf	application/pdf	99.5 KB	05/19/2025 06:39:PM

Project Citation:

Bick, Alexander, Blandin, Adam, and Mertens, Karel. Real-Time Population Survey. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-05-22. https://doi.org/10.3886/E158081V7

Project Description

Summary: The Real-Time Population Survey (RPS) is a national labor market survey of US adults aged 18-64 following the core questionnaire of the Current Population Survey (CPS), supplemented with additional questions (e.g., about commuting behavior and employer tenure). Separate waves of the survey were conducted each month between April 2020 and June 2021. Since then the RPS has been run two to three times per year.

Funding Sources: Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency at Arizona State University; Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation at Virginia Commonwealth University; Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: labor market status; unemployment; commuting (travel); job tenure; full-time employment; part-time employment; employment; hours; working hours; layoff; job change; job loss

Geographic Coverage: United States of America

Time Period(s): 4/2020 – 6/2024

Collection Date(s): 4/2020 – 6/2024

Universe: Age group 18-64

Data Type(s): survey data

Methodology

Sampling:

The RPS derives its sample from an online panel provided by Qualtrics.

The sample was targeted to be nationally representative for the U.S. for the age group 18-64 along several broad demographic characteristics: gender, age, race and ethnicity, education, marital status, number of children in the household, Census region, and household income in 2019.

The targets were based on the following categories: Age: 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64; Race and ethnicity: non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, other; Education: high school or less, some college or associate degree, bachelor’s degree or more; Marital status: married or not; Number of children in the household: 0, 1, 2, 3 or more; Census region: Midwest, Northeast, South and West; Annual household income in 2019: <$50k, $50k-100k, >$100k.

Collection Mode(s): web-based survey

Weights: Sample weights were constructed using an iterative proportional fitting (raking) algorithm based on Deming and Stephan (1940) to match the distribution of initial targets, finer categories for some variables and interactions with sex. We provide two different sets of weights, which conditional on additional variables, for details and references see the readme file.

Unit(s) of Observation: Individuals and Couples

Geographic Unit: US States

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