Evaluating the Accuracy and Efficacy of the Income and Program Screeners in the 2022 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)

The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) relies on income and program screener questions that ask about annual income, monthly income, and program participation during the reference year to reduce respondent burden. High-income respondents are screened out of questions about programs that provide support to low-income households. This paper is the first effort to thoroughly assess the effectiveness of the income and program screeners since the 2014 redesign. Evaluation of the income and program screeners was approached from two perspectives. First, we evaluated the accuracy of responses to the income screeners compared to edited income. Second, we examined how many low-income people were asked the means-tested program questions based on their responses to the income and program screener questions. Using data from the 2022 SIPP, our results provide a descriptive overview of how well the income and program screener questions perform. These findings provide the groundwork for evidence-based decision making for improvements to the screener questions.