PSID 2025: Continuity and Change in American Economic and Social Life

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a cornerstone of data infrastructure for social science research in the United States. The study has used a series of surveys to gather information on US families since 1968. Children and grandchildren from the original PSID families now participate as well; the result is data that follows families through several generations.

The long timespan allows scientific investigation of questions about how people and families grow and change over time. This includes the study of economic outcomes such as employment, income, and wealth, research on how early life experiences affect employment and health in adulthood, research on how U.S. families cope with the needs of aging family members, and work that examines how key economic variables like consumption and employment are affected by broader businesses cycles and unanticipated events.

The research team will collect one new wave of data. The new wave will include measurements of the longer run effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on PSID families. This includes measurements of the direct health impacts of the disease, the effects of disruptions to employment and education, and whether family members were helped by government efforts to reduce the burden of the pandemic.

The PIs also plan new measurements of participation in short term ‘gig economy’ jobs, will expand valuable administrative data linkages, and will continue their current effort to expand web-based administration of the PSID questionnaire. The project promotes the national interest by maintaining U.S. leadership in science, by making data available to a broad community of researchers interested in understanding American families, and by providing necessary data to evaluate the long-term impacts of past policy decisions at the federal, state, and local levels of government.

The PSID is the world's longest running household panel survey. Through its long-term measures of economic and social wellbeing, the study allows researchers and policy analysts to investigate the dynamism inherent in social and behavioral process. The long panel, genealogical design, and broad content provide scientists a unique and powerful opportunity to study change within the same family over decades.

Collecting additional waves of data from the PSID families contributes to scientific understanding of the dynamics of economic and social behavior. The extended time series of data supports new and systematic investigation of a myriad of questions in the full range of scientific disciplines that study how humans grow and change over the life cycle. This includes the study of economic outcomes (for example, the changes that occur across business cycles and changes in response to increased international economic competition), the study of intergenerational transmission of wealth and income, and the study of how income and health in adulthood and old age depend on early-life experiences.

Consistent measures over time are important for accurately estimating the dynamics of these behaviors. Gathering data from the same families over many years improves the precision of the measurement as multiple measures are collected within the same families as well as from multiple families over a period of decades. The investigators will carry out numerous innovations and enhancements while maintaining core data collection for comparability.

The PSID creates broader impacts in many ways. It is used by an interdisciplinary community and is increasingly important in health research. The data archive is used to inform public policy; at least nine federal agencies use PSID data.

The PSID is also an important resource for teaching and learning. The data are free and publicly available. They are widely used by graduate and undergraduate students.

The award funds web-based outreach activities that will make the PSID an even more valuable tool for teaching and learning.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.