Writing Benefit Statements

Writing Benefit Statements
For Projects Accessing Confidential Data

Table of Contents

1.
2.
3.
4.

Why Projects Must Have Written Benefit Statements...........................................................2
The Benefit Criteria Projects May Meet................................................................................3
What Each Criterion Means...................................................................................................5
How to Prepare Benefit Statements .....................................................................................19

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1.

Why Projects Must Have Written Benefit Statements

The Census Bureau has consistently placed the highest premium on the appropriate use of data
collected or acquired in accordance with its legal authority under Title 13, United States Code.
That authority requires all access to confidential data to benefit the Census Bureau's data
collection programs. Written benefit statements provide documentation of how specific projects
involving access to confidential data are expected to benefit the Census Bureau.
The Census Bureau approved the following list of thirteen criteria to determine whether a project
delivers a benefit to the Census Bureau. All researchers wishing to access confidential data for a
project must include a benefit statement specifically addressing one or more of these criteria. To
ensure that the Census Bureau receives the anticipated benefits from such projects, all projects
must provide technical memoranda or otherwise document the actual benefits of the project.
Project output will not be reviewed for disclosure avoidance until the project’s actual benefits
are documented.
This guidance document explains what each of the thirteen criteria means and describes how to
prepare benefit statements. If you have any questions about the attached materials or need
further guidance, please contact the Policy Office.

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2.

The Benefit Criteria Projects May Meet
1.

Evaluating concepts and practices underlying Census Bureau statistical data
collection and dissemination practices, including consideration of continued
relevance and appropriateness of past Census Bureau procedures to changing
economic and social circumstances.

2.

Analyzing demographic and social or economic processes that affect Census
Bureau programs, especially those that evaluate or hold promise of improving the
quality of products issued by the Census Bureau.

3.

Developing means of increasing the utility of Census Bureau data for analyzing
public programs, public policy, and/or demographic, economic, or social
conditions.

4.

Conducting or facilitating Census Bureau census and survey data collection,
processing or dissemination, including through activities such as administrative
support, information technology support, program oversight, or auditing under
appropriate legal authority.

5.

Understanding and / or improving the quality of data produced through a Title 13,
Chapter 5 survey, census or estimate;

6.

Leading to new or improved methodology to collect, measure, or tabulate a Title
13, Chapter 5 survey, census or estimate;

7.

Enhancing the data collected in a Title 13, Chapter 5 survey or census. For
example:
a.
b.

Improving imputations for non-response;
Developing links across time or entities for data gathered in censuses and
surveys authorized by Title 13, Chapter 5.

8.

Identifying the limitations of, or improving, the underlying business register,
household Master Address File, and industrial and geographical classification
schemes used to collect the data;

9.

Identifying shortcomings of current data collection programs and / or
documenting new data collection needs;

10.

Constructing, verifying, or improving the sampling frame for a census or survey

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authorized under Title 13, Chapter 5;
11.

Preparing estimates of population and characteristics of population as authorized
under Title 13, Chapter 5;

12.

Developing a methodology for estimating non-response to a census or survey
authorized under Title 13, Chapter 5;

13.

Developing statistical weights for a survey authorized under Title 13, Chapter 5.

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3.

What Each Criterion Means

Criterion 1: Evaluating concepts and practices underlying Census Bureau statistical data
collection, processing, and dissemination practices, including consideration of continued
relevance and appropriateness of Census Bureau procedures to changing economic and social
circumstances.
Explanation:
This criterion can be interpreted to include evaluations such as:
•

Evaluate whether the current data contain the information required to reflect changing
social and economic circumstances.

•

Evaluate whether published reports and data provide information relevant to these
changing circumstances, and point to new dissemination methods that would improve
their relevance.

•

Such evaluations provide information the Census Bureau needs to decide what means,
such as new questions, collection practices, or reports, would make its data continue to be
relevant.

Examples:
•

Changes in family circumstances: Grandparents rather than parents are thought to be
primary caregivers of a growing proportion of children.

•

Evaluating new questions about this care giving relationship can point to:
potential improvements in questionnaire design;
additional areas where new questions are needed (for example, on the grandparents'
physical health, and on their responsibilities as caregivers of other family members);
aspects of the relationship that are most important to convey in new published
statistics and reports.

•

Changes in sources of health insurance coverage: the new government State Children’s
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) program was intended to provide health insurance
coverage to some groups of children. Because the program was new, new questions were
needed to collect information on it. Evaluating the responses provides important
information on the quality of the new data, and on the need for additional questions, or
modifications to the questions.

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•

Welfare reform: The legislation was intended to change incentives for labor force
participation and employment, as well as for participation in government transfer.

•

Programs. Extensive analysis of post-reform data can enhance the data's relevance by
providing assessments of the legislation's effectiveness. These analyses can also provide
information pointing to the need to evaluate the extent of deficiencies in questionnaire
content and collection practices that hinder the data's relevance for this new
circumstance.

6

Criterion 2: Analyzing demographic and social or economic processes that affect Census
Bureau programs, especially those that evaluate or hold promise of improving the quality of
products issued by the Census Bureau.
Explanation:
New products -- reports, on-line statistics, public-use files, etc. -- may be needed to provide
relevant information about changing demographic, social, or economic processes. New
questions, surveys, and methods may be required to ensure that Census Bureau products
continue to be relevant in a changing economy and society. Improving relevance could improve
the quality of the Census Bureau's products.
Examples:
•

Changes in the demographic composition of households -- age structure, race and
ethnicity, duration of relationships -- affect assumptions underlying the specific data the
Census Bureau collects. For example, assumptions about the ages at which meaningful
labor force participation begins, or formal schooling begins and ends, sometimes
determine which individuals are asked about such behaviors. An aging society in which
people continue to participate in the labor force for many years, and so have more years
to benefit from mid-life education and retraining, may invalidate those assumptions.

•

New reports on, for example, numbers of workers returning to formal schooling, by age.

•

Number and socioeconomic characteristics of workers who are self-employed,
independent contractors, etc., supplementing information currently collected or not
collected at all.

•

Shifts in education patterns and employment in specific economic sectors may require
information about new types of education, jobs, and employment practices. Analyzing
the ability of current data to address such new and emerging patterns provides
information the Census Bureau needs to consider whether it needs to modify existing
occupational and employment classification systems, and questions about types of
employment.

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Criterion 3: Developing means of increasing the utility of Census Bureau data for analyzing
public programs, public policy, and/or demographic, economic, or social conditions.
Explanation:
Census Bureau data are widely used to analyze existing and proposed public programs, to inform
public policy decisions, and to investigate changing demographic, economic, and societal
conditions. In their original forms -- publications and other public-use data -- these data may not
immediately yield the required information. Specific variables and data structures frequently
need to be created to make the existing data useful for particular concerns. Constructing these
variables and data structures allows the existing data to be used to address an expanded set of
concerns.
Examples:
•

An individual's participation in public programs such as Medicaid depends on their own
income and labor force participation and on family characteristics. Those family
characteristics include family income, labor participation by other family members, and
members' eligibility for employer-provided health insurance. Some of the raw material
from which such individual and family information can be constructed is available on the
original Census Bureau data products. But some information may not be available, or
available at the level of detail required, on the public-use data. For example, Medicaid
programs are administered at the county level. Access to geographic detail beyond what
is available publicly may be crucial to improved modeling of program effects or
outcomes, or to an accurate description of economic conditions.

•

The racial and socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods is thought to matter to
individuals when they consider whether to move. Although potentially relevant data have
been collected in the American Housing Survey to address this hypothesis, making use of
them requires access to internal data. The data can be used to (a) characterize how stable
neighborhoods are over time with respect to the race and economic status of residents
within an area; (b) examine how the racial composition and socioeconomic status of
neighbors affect whites' and blacks' development of plans to move out of the
neighborhood and their actual out-migration; and (c) examine how the perceptions of the
neighborhood by individuals and their neighbors, particularly with respect to crime and
the quality of schools, influences the process of moving for whites and blacks.

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Criterion 4: Conducting or facilitating Census Bureau census and survey data collection,
processing or dissemination, including through activities such as administrative support,
information technology support, program oversight, or auditing under appropriate legal
authority.
Explanation:
Administering Census Bureau survey and census programs may require advice, collaboration,
oversight, or direct involvement of persons who are not Census Bureau employees.
Examples:
•

While conducting the Census Bureau’s programs requires many skills, some critical
skills, such as administrative and information technology support, are most effectively
acquired through the flexibility of contractor and other non-employee relationships.

•

Appropriate oversight of the Census Bureau’s operations may require direct involvement
of program sponsors or others with legal oversight responsibilities. For example,
program sponsors may wish to observe data collection activities, or to review in detail
proposed modifications to data processing. Such review requires access to the relevant
Title 13 data, such as the specific response of the observed data collection.

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Criterion 5: Understanding and / or improving the quality of data produced through a Title 13,
Chapter 5 survey, census or estimate;
Explanation:
The Census Bureau needs to understand and continually assess the quality of all the data in all
surveys, censuses, and estimates, and to seek ways to improve them.
Examples:
•

Examine little-used data. If the particular variables the project uses have not been used
previously, or have been used in a very different application, then the Census Bureau
benefits by having a researcher examine the data carefully. Good empirical analysis
often begins with tasks such as examining where records or items are missing, where
responses are extreme, or take on inconsistent values. The examination will be far more
extensive than can be carried out in the routine internal consistency checks during survey
processing. The examination should lead both to an assessment of this aspect of data
quality, and to recommendations for directions for improvement.

•

Compare similar data from different sources. Independent sources often contain
measures of similar concepts. Comparing measures from independent sources that should
be similar, or that should differ in predictable ways, increases the Census Bureau's
knowledge of its data collection programs.

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Criterion 6: Leading to new or improved methodology to collect, measure, or tabulate a Title
13, Chapter 5 survey, census or estimate;
Explanation:
Continually changing economic and social circumstances, and statistical and economic
methodologies, require continual assessments of the Census Bureau’s current practices,
including drawing new inferences from analyses of its previous practices.
Examples:
•

Analysis of existing data may show that information should be collected at a different
level, for example, from persons rather than households, or from plants rather than firms.

•

Analysis may show that data should be tabulated and published at a different level. For
example, data tabulated at the firm level perhaps should also be tabulated at the plant
level. Similarly, there may be meaningful tabulations at the household level of data
currently only tabulated at the person level.

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Criterion 7:
example:

Enhancing the data collected in a Title 13, Chapter 5 survey or census. For

a. Improving imputations for non-response;
b. Developing links across time or entities for data gathered in census and surveys
authorized by Title 13, Chapter 5.
Explanation:
Existing data in a survey or census are substantial investments of resources. Applying new
techniques to improve the quality of these data, for example, by applying better adjustments for
non-response increases the value of these investments. Similarly, linking existing data across
time or space provides additional information from them. Insights drawn from analyzing these
enhanced data also provide information on potential improvements to future data collections.
Examples:
•

Analysis of important economic or social relationships can be compared with the explicit
or implied relationships used in nonresponse imputation algorithms, leading to
suggestions for improving the algorithms. Such improvements enhance Census Bureau
data.

•

Linking external data to Census Bureau data enhances the Census Bureau data. Future
researchers can make more informed inferences about economic and social relationships
using these linked data. Those inferences may improve imputations for non-response or
provide information about the quality of sampling frames and data collection techniques.

•

Linking existing Census Bureau data by developing longitudinal files for data from
businesses or households creates new data that enhance the information collected in the
survey or census. While some business data have been linked extensively, those links
have not been exhaustively evaluated.

•

Links between business and person or household data, and links over time of person and
household data, are not as extensive and have not been exhaustively evaluated. Such
linkages enhance the information collected in each data set.

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Criterion 8: Identifying the limitations of, or improving, the underlying business register,
household Master Address File, and industrial and geographical classification schemes used to
collect the data.
Explanation:
Important information for Census Bureau data collection efforts is provided by research that
evaluates whether emerging new social and economic patterns lead to elements that are missing
from the household or business sampling frames, or identifies likely sources to improve the
frames.
Examples:
•

Identify errors in geographical and industrial coding, and potential systematic causes of
those errors.

•

Linking data for the same households or businesses, either between two Census Bureau
data sets or by linking data from other sources, can provide this kind of information.
an outside data set may identify businesses or individuals that should be in the Census
Bureau frame but are not;
understanding the sources of any differences in economic or geographical coding
improves the quality of Census Bureau data.

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Criterion 9: Identifying shortcomings of current data collection programs and / or
documenting new data collection needs.
Explanation:
Current Census Bureau programs may not collect sufficient information to address important
questions about social, demographic, or economic populations.
Examples:
•

No information may be collected, or there may be insufficient detail to estimate
important comparisons among subgroups of these populations.

•

Research may point out such deficiencies as data are used to address such questions or
make such comparisons.

•

Research may identify the best directions in which the Census Bureau should begin
collecting data to fill these gaps. For example, research may identify the need for
additional information on the materials that businesses purchase to produce their product,
and may in particular identify the most important details on which information should be
gathered.

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Criterion 10: Constructing, verifying, or improving the sampling frame for a census or survey
authorized under Title 13, Chapter 5.
Explanation:
Sampling frames are a fundamental building block for Census Bureau data collections.
Continually evolving economic and social circumstances affect the appropriateness and
completeness of existing and potential frames, and continual changes in statistical tools and
methods affect the best practice techniques for using those frames.
Examples:
•

Outside data sources can be used to construct alternative sampling frames. Linking the
alternative and Census Bureau frame allows researchers to assess the Census Bureau frame
and either verify it or suggest improvements.

•

Alternative sampling strategies can be tested within existing sampling frames. Assessing the
comparative characteristics of the alternative and existing samples provides information to
verify the robustness and appropriateness of current practice, or to suggest improvements.

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Criterion 11: Preparing estimates of population and characteristics of population as authorized
under Title 13, Chapter 5.
Explanation:
Existing publications and projects may not contain all population and subgroup characteristics of
relevance and interest.
Examples:
•

Research typically yields statistics beyond those that the Census Bureau has already released.
These statistics estimate specific populations and subpopulations and their characteristics.

•

Such statistics include summary statistics about specific variables (means, medians,
moments), and coefficient estimates that summarize behavior of subgroups of the population.
These statistics increase the information available about these populations, subpopulations,
and their characteristics.

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Criterion 12: Developing a methodology for estimating non-response to a census or survey
authorized under Title 13, Chapter 5.
Explanation:
Understanding patterns of nonresponse, and its sources, is of greater importance to the Census
Bureau because response rates are an important indicator of data quality. Nonresponse is so
important to data quality that the Census Bureau initiated, participates actively in, and supports,
long-standing interagency groups that jointly explore developing better measures of response
rates, sources of nonresponse, and ways to improve response rates. However, these staff
resources are limited, so many important facets of nonresponse remain unexplored.
Example:
•

Research that carefully addresses patterns of response, and the impact of nonresponse on
data quality, provides important information that the Census Bureau needs to improve the
quality of its data.

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Criterion 13: Developing statistical weights for a survey authorized under Title 13, chapter 5.
Explanation:
Appropriate weights are essential to correctly presenting the data items collected in surveys.
Examples:
•

The research may assess how survey weights are currently developed. Findings from such
research are valuable to the Census Bureau in improving survey weighting.

•

Particularly for external research projects, the research may address issues such as
nonresponse that the researcher does not explicitly connect to the Census Bureau's processes
for developing survey weights. However, Census Bureau staff may recognize that such
factors are considered in developing survey weights, or should be considered. Such research
findings will provide important information to the Census Bureau.

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4.

How to Prepare Benefit Statements

1.

Determine which benefit criteria the project meets. Note that a broad range of
research activities and products potentially meet each benefit criterion.

2.

Determine which benefit criteria the project must meet. Most projects will
provide benefits under several criteria. However, a project that provides benefits
under only one or two criteria shows benefits as long as those benefits are clear
and strong. Some projects meet most or all criteria. For such projects, identify all
the criteria it meets, but emphasize only the strongest benefits.

3.

a.

All projects are required to show at least one benefit.

b.

Projects that use Federal Tax Information covered under Title 26 must
show that the predominant purpose of their project is to benefit the Census
Bureau by meeting at least one of criteria 5 through 13.

For each criterion:
a.

State the criterion verbatim.

b.

Write a clear and strong paragraph describing how the project will meet it.

4.

Clear paragraphs are written in plain English for an educated layperson. Do not
use Census Bureau abbreviations, or Census Bureau or technical jargon. People in
other Census Bureau divisions or Directorates may review the statements. The
reviewers may come from disciplines other than social science, or from your own
specialty.

5.

Strong paragraphs are specific about:
a.

What the project will do:
"compares geographic coding for the same plant in the Annual Survey of
Manufactures and the Survey of Manufacturing Technology for 1988 and
1993" vs. “examines geographic coding in two sources."
"analyzes welfare-to-work transitions of demographic groups over time in
the Survey of Income and Program Participation and whether those
patterns change following welfare reform” vs. “examines income and
employment in a household survey."

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b.

How the project will do it:
"uses program xyz / technique to compare geographic coding for the same
plant in the Annual Survey of Manufactures and the Survey of
Manufacturing Technology for 1988 and 1993, and develops measures of
accuracy and sources of error" vs. “examines geographic coding in two
sources.”
"uses program xyz / technique to analyze welfare-to-work transitions of
demographic groups over time in the Survey of Income and Program
Participation and whether those patterns change following welfare reform”
vs. “examines income and employment in a household survey."

c.

How specifically will the project meet Census Bureau needs, including
needs of which it may currently be unaware?
"By identifying errors in geographic coding arising from the use of
sampling frame x or data coding procedure y, the researcher will be able
to improve the quality of the existing data and will make
recommendations to the Census Bureau about how to avoid or minimize
errors in future survey collections" vs. "examines geographic coding in
two sources."
"Examines the effect of new question sequences on estimates of welfareto-work transitions of demographic groups over time in the Survey of
Income and Program Participation and whether estimates follow expected
patterns, and will make recommendations to the Census Bureau on
whether additional change are likely to be needed to assess the effects of
welfare reform” vs. “examines income and employment in a household
survey."

d.

e.

Breadth of what the project will do:
i.

How many states, industries, population groups, years, surveys,
censuses, will be involved?

ii.

If the project's breadth is small, can it be viewed as a pilot study
that assesses feasibility of methods and adequacy of data for a
broader project? Are the population groups, states, years, etc.,
critical for specific Census Bureau products or purposes?

Match with Census Bureau needs:

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