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Bureau of Labor Statistics > Consumer Expenditure Survey > Home

Note to CE 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 unit’s 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