Creating per capita income from IPUMS ACS dataset across multiple years

[Tariq Abdullah]

I'm working on ACS dataset which doesn't provide number of population in 50 states across different years. But, for each person the income is given.

I need to create per capita income from here and my best guess is by using egen command. Is it like the following

bysort statefip year: egen tot_inc = total(income)
bysort statefip year: egen tot_pop =total(statefip==?) [ I'm confused here since I don't know how to figure out the total population in ACS dataset for a particular state in a given year ]

gen per_cap_inc = tot_inc/tot_pop

I know how to figure out the per capita income for 50 states in multiple years , the thing is I'm having trouble how to find the total number of population in my dataset for a particular state in a given year ?

Please put your valuable input if you have any experience with IPUMS ACS data or you have a hunch on how to find total respondents from a particular state in. a given year from any dataset ?

[Justin Niakamal]

Just remember that this is survey data. Your tot_inc variable isn't weighted. Pay attention to the pwgtp variable (think of it as the number of persons). So your pop variable would be

bysort statefip year: egen tot_pop =total(pwgtp)

And your income would be something more along the lines of

gen inc = income * pwgtp
bysort statefip year: egen tot_inc = total(inc)

gen per_cap_inc = tot_inc/tot_pop

It's always good to see if you can reproduce the ACS (American Community Survey) estimates to make sure you're on the right track. For example, I've downloaded the 2019 1-year sample for Rhode Island and according to the figures on the Census website the population is 1,059,361 (as shown here https://data.census.gov/cedsci/profile?g=0400000US44)

qui import delimited using "/Users/justinniakamal/Desktop/psam_p44.csv", clear
egen tot_pop = total(pwgtp)
di tot_pop[1]
1059361

Your estimates usually won't excatly match what's reported (especially income), but should be in the neighborhood. Hope this helps.

[Tariq Abdullah]

I really can't express my gratitude how insightful this feedback was for my understanding. Much appreciated for such kind and well detailed information !