DOCUMENTATION FOR INDIVIDUAL HOURLY WAGES FROM CPS MORG FILES

This text file contains an explanation of the hourly individual wage income file 
from the CPS Merged Outgoing Rotation Group files (morg_earnhre) from 1979 to 2000. 

These data were calculated using the NBER-created variable "earnhre" which measures 
personal hourly wage income at the time of the survey. (The original CPS variable is 
"a-herntp".) This question is only asked of workers paid by the hour. In the original 
data, it is measured in pennies; the data we provide are measured in dollars. 

The data are organized in state-year format. There are 22 observations (1979-2000) 
for each state, plus the District of Columbia and an observation with the total for 
the US (= 1,144 records). All earnings data have been adjusted to 2002 dollars using 
the CPI deflator for all urban consumers. The columns of the text file are separated 
by spaces and do not contain variable names; in these text-format files, state names 
are surrounded by quotation marks and two-word names contain spaces (e.g.,"New York"). 

The variables in the data appear in the following order: 

1.	statename
2.	stcode		- Two-letter state postal abbreviation
3.	year
4.	p10earnhre	- 10th percentile of hourly wages (all)
5.	p20earnhre	- 20th percentile of hourly wages (all)
6.	p30earnhre	- 30th percentile of hourly wages (all)
7.	p40earnhre	- 40th percentile of hourly wages (all)
8.	p50earnhre	- 50th percentile (median) of hourly wages (all)
9.	p60earnhre	- 60th percentile of hourly wages (all)
10.	p70earnhre	- 70th percentile of hourly wages (all)
11.	p80earnhre	- 80th percentile of hourly wages (all)
12.	p90earnhre	- 90th percentile of hourly wages (all)
13.	meanearnhre	- average hourly wages (all)
14.	minearnhre	- Minimum hourly wages (all)
15.	maxearnhre	- Maximum hourly wages (all)
16.	sdearnhre	- Standard deviation of hourly wages (all)
17.	ineqearnhre	- Ratio of the 90th percentile of hourly wages to the 10th
	            	  percentile of hourly wages (all)
18.	gini_earnhre 	- Gini coefficient for hourly wages (all)
19.	n_earnhre    	- Number of non-missing values (all)
20.	nwgt_earnhre 	- Weighted number of non-missing values (all)

21.	men_p10earnhre	- 10th percentile of hourly wages (men)
22.	men_p20earnhre	- 20th percentile of hourly wages (men)
23.	men_p30earnhre   - 30th percentile of hourly wages (men)
24.	men_p40earnhre   - 40th percentile of hourly wages (men)
25.	men_p50earnhre   - 50th percentile (median) of hourly wages (men)
26.	men_p60earnhre   - 60th percentile of hourly wages (men)
27.	men_p70earnhre   - 70th percentile of hourly wages (men)
28.	men_p80earnhre   - 80th percentile of hourly wages (men)
29.	men_p90earnhre   - 90th percentile of hourly wages (men)
30.	men_meanearnhre  - average hourly wages (men)
31.	men_minearnhre   - Minimum hourly wages (men)
32.	men_maxearnhre   - Maximum hourly wages (men)
33.	men_sdearnhre    - Standard deviation of hourly wages (men)
34.	men_ineqearnhre  - Ratio of the 90th percentile of hourly wages to the 10th
	              	  percentile of hourly wages (men)
35.	men_gini_earnhre - Gini coefficient for hourly wages (men)
36.	men_n_earnhre    - Number of non-missing values (men)
37.	men_nwgt_earnhre - Weighted number of non-missing values (men)

38.	wom_p10earnhre   - 10th percentile of hourly wages (women)
39.	wom_p20earnhre   - 20th percentile of hourly wages (women)
40.	wom_p30earnhre   - 30th percentile of hourly wages (women)
41.	wom_p40earnhre   - 40th percentile of hourly wages (women)
42.	wom_p50earnhre   - 50th percentile (median) of hourly wages (women)
43.	wom_p60earnhre   - 60th percentile of hourly wages (women)
44.	wom_p70earnhre   - 70th percentile of hourly wages (women)
45.	wom_p80earnhre   - 80th percentile of hourly wages (women)
46.	wom_p90earnhre   - 90th percentile of hourly wages (women)
47.	wom_meanearnhre  - average hourly wages (women)
48.	wom_minearnhre   - Minimum hourly wages (women)
49.	wom_maxearnhre   - Maximum hourly wages (women)
50.	wom_sdearnhre    - Standard deviation of hourly wages (women)
51.	wom_ineqearnhre  - Ratio of the 90th percentile of hourly wages to the 10th
	              	  percentile of hourly wages (women)
52.	wom_gini_earnhre - Gini coefficient for hourly wages (women)
53.	wom_n_earnhre    - Number of non-missing values (women)
54.	wom_nwgt_earnhre - Weighted number of non-missing values (women)

55.     cpideflator 	- Deflator used to adjust values for inflation (this is provided 
		    	  so that the user may calculate the unadjusted values). This deflator
		    	  uses the consumer price index and is uniform for all states.
56.	statecpi    	- This is a state-specific deflator from 1963 to 2000, except
		    	  for Alaska and Hawaii. A description of how this deflator was created
 		    	  can be found in Berry, William D., Richard Fording and Russell Hanson,
		    	  "An annual cost of living index for the American states, 1960-1995", 
		    	  Journal of Politics, 62:550-567. The updated deflator files can be found
		    	  at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu:8080/ICPSR-STUDY/01275.xml



UNIVERSE:

The CPS MORG universe for personal hourly wages includes non-self-employed workers who are
paid by the hour (i.e., only private and government employees working for pay by the hour). 
We also excluded respondents who reported an hourly wage of less than $0.50. For more 
information, visit the NBER at http://www.nber.org/data/morg.html.

WEIGHTING: 

We used the "earnwt" variable provided by unicon, divided by 12, to produce weighted estimates.