Panel recruitment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ATP was created in 2014, with the first cohort of panelists invited to join the panel at the end of a large, national, landline and cellphone random-digit-dial survey that was conducted in both English and Spanish. Two additional recruitments were conducted using the same method in 2015 and 2017, respectively. Across these three surveys, a total of 19,718 adults were invited to join the ATP, of whom 9,942 (50%) agreed to participate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In August 2018, the ATP switched from telephone to address-based sampling (ABS) recruitment. A study cover letter and a pre-incentive are mailed to a stratified, random sample of households selected from the U.S. Postal Service\u2019s<\/a> Delivery Sequence File. This Postal Service file has been estimated to cover as much as 98% of the population, although some studies suggest that the coverage could be in the low 90% range.[5. numoffset=”5″ AAPOR Task Force on Address-based Sampling. 2016. \u201cAAPOR Report: Address-based Sampling.\u201d<\/a>] Within each sampled household, the adult with the next birthday is asked to participate. Other details of the ABS recruitment protocol have changed over time but are available upon request.[6. Email pewsurveys@pewresearch.org<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have recruited a national sample of U.S. adults to the ATP approximately once per year since 2014. In some years, the recruitment has included additional efforts (known as an \u201coversample\u201d) to boost sample size with underrepresented groups. For example, Hispanic adults, Black adults and Asian adults were oversampled in 2019, 2022 and 2023, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across the six address-based recruitments, a total of 23,862 adults were invited to join the ATP, of whom 20,917 agreed to join the panel and completed an initial profile survey. Of the 30,859 individuals who have ever joined the ATP, 11,934 remained active panelists and continued to receive survey invitations at the time this survey was conducted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The American Trends Panel never uses breakout routers or chains that direct respondents to additional surveys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The overall target population for this survey was noninstitutionalized persons ages 18 and older living in the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii. It featured a stratified random sample from the ATP in which non-Hispanic Asian adults, non-Hispanic Black men, Hispanic men, Republican or Republican leaning Hispanic adults who are registered to vote, and Republican or Republican leaning 18- to 29-year-olds were selected with certainty. The remaining panelists were sampled at rates designed to ensure that the share of respondents in each stratum is proportional to its share of the U.S. adult population to the greatest extent possible. Respondent weights are adjusted to account for differential probabilities of selection as described in the Weighting section below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The questionnaire was developed by Pew Research Center in consultation with Ipsos. The web program was rigorously tested on both PC and mobile devices by the Ipsos project management team and Pew Research Center researchers. The Ipsos project management team also populated test data that was analyzed in SPSS to ensure the logic and randomizations were working as intended before launching the survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All respondents were offered a post-paid incentive for their participation. Respondents could choose to receive the post-paid incentive in the form of a check or a gift code to Amazon.com or could choose to decline the incentive. Incentive amounts ranged from $5 to $15 depending on whether the respondent belongs to a part of the population that is harder or easier to reach. Differential incentive amounts were designed to increase panel survey participation among groups that traditionally have low survey response propensities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The data collection field period for this survey was Nov. 27 to Dec. 3, 2023. Postcard notifications were mailed to all ATP panelists with a known residential address on Nov. 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Invitations were sent out in two separate launches: soft launch and full launch. Sixty panelists were included in the soft launch, which began with an initial invitation sent on Nov. 27. The ATP panelists chosen for the initial soft launch were known responders who had completed previous ATP surveys within one day of receiving their invitation. All remaining English- and Spanish-speaking sampled panelists were included in the full launch and were sent an invitation on Nov. 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All panelists with an email address received an email invitation and up to two email reminders if they did not respond to the survey. All ATP panelists who consented to SMS messages received an SMS invitation and up to two SMS reminders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To ensure high-quality data, the Center\u2019s researchers performed data quality checks to identify any respondents showing clear patterns of satisficing. This includes checking for whether respondents left questions blank at very high rates or always selected the first or last answer presented. As a result of this checking, four ATP respondents were removed from the survey dataset prior to weighting and analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ATP data is weighted in a multistep process that accounts for multiple stages of sampling and nonresponse that occur at different points in the survey process. First, each panelist begins with a base weight that reflects their probability of selection for their initial recruitment survey. These weights are then rescaled and adjusted to account for changes in the design of ATP recruitment surveys from year to year. Finally, the weights are calibrated to align with the population benchmarks in the accompanying table to correct for nonresponse to recruitment surveys and panel attrition. If only a subsample of panelists was invited to participate in the wave, this weight is adjusted to account for any differential probabilities of selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the panelists who completed the survey, this weight is then calibrated again to align with the population benchmarks identified in the accompanying table and trimmed at the 1st and 99th percentiles to reduce the loss in precision stemming from variance in the weights. Sampling errors and tests of statistical significance take into account the effect of weighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following table shows the unweighted sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request. In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the analysis of the labor market and economic outcomes of young adults is derived from the Current Population Survey<\/a> (CPS). Administered jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CPS is a monthly survey of approximately 60,000 occupied households that typically interviews about 50,000 households. It is the source of the nation\u2019s official statistics on unemployment and is explicitly designed to survey the labor force. It is representative of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This analysis used the Annual Social and Economic Supplement<\/a> (ASEC) of the CPS, conducted in March of every year. The ASEC survey typically features an expanded sample of more than 75,000 households with about 70,000 interviews. The ASEC collected in 2023 had about 57,000 households. The ASEC is the basis for the Census Bureau\u2019s annual income<\/a> and poverty<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pandemic hampered the collection of data in 2020 and 2021, and thus the underlying sample sizes in these years tend to be smaller. For example, in 2021 the sample included about 900 women ages 25 to 34 who were high school graduates working full time, full year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Census Bureau generated entropy balance weights<\/a> for the 2020 and 2021 ASEC to account for nonrandom nonresponse. Our analysis used these weights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Estimates of household income refer to the prior calendar year. Household incomes are adjusted for the number of people in a household using the methodology from Pew Research Center\u2019s previous work on the American middle class<\/a>. Income is rescaled for this analysis because a four-person household with an income of, say, $50,000, faces a tighter budget constraint than a two-person household with the same income. Household incomes are expressed in 2022 dollars using the Chained Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (C-CPI-U) between 2001 and 2023 and the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers Retroactive Series (R-CPI-U-RS) between 1979 and 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The CPS microdata used in this report are the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series<\/a> (IPUMS) provided by the University of Minnesota. The IPUMS assigns uniform codes, to the extent possible, to data collected in the CPS over the years. Read more information about the IPUMS<\/a>, including variable definition and sampling error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Table](\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/05\/ST_2024.5.23_non-college-workers_M-01.png?w=420\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSample design<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Questionnaire development and testing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Incentives<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Data collection protocol<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Table](\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/05\/ST_2024.5.23_non-college-workers_M-02.png?w=420\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nData quality checks<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Weighting<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Table](\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/05\/ST_2024.5.23_non-college-workers_M-03.png?w=420\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Table](\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/05\/ST_2024.5.23_non-college-workers_M-04.png?w=420\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nDispositions and response rates<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Table](\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/05\/ST_2024.5.23_non-college-workers_M-05.png?w=420\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Table](\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/05\/ST_2024.5.23_non-college-workers_M-06.png?w=420\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nCurrent Population Survey methodology<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Survey of Consumer Finances methodology<\/h3>\n\n\n\n