How Many Books Have You Read?

Two different surveys of book reading trends show conflicting results. Recently, both Pew Research Center and Gallup asked Americans aged 18 or older how many books they had read in the past 12 months.

Pew's results showed no change in the number of books read: "Americans read an average (mean) of roughly 14 books during the previous 12 months...identical to 2011." 

Gallup's results showed a decline in the number of books read: "Americans say they read an average of 12.6 books during the past year, a smaller number than Gallup has measured in any prior survey."

What explains the discrepancy? The difference may be due to the way each organization posed the question...

• Gallup respondents were asked the following: "During the past year, about how many books did you read, either all or part of the way through?" 
• Pew respondents were asked, "During the past 12 months, about how many books did you read either all or part of the way through? Please include any print, electronic, or audiobooks you may have read or listened to."

The difference in the survey results is likely due to Pew's inclusion of audiobooks in the wording of its question, reminding respondents to count books they had listened as well as those they had read. According to Pew's survey, 31 percent of adults listened to an audiobook in the past 12 months, up from 27 percent in 2019. Some of this reading may have been missed by Gallup's question, which perhaps explains the decline in Gallup's number. 

Source: Demo Memo analysis of Pew Research Center's Three-in-Ten Americans Now Read E-Books and Gallup's Americans Reading Fewer Books than in Past

Median Household Income in 2019: $68,703

Every year demographers anxiously await the Census Bureau's release of income statistics from the Current Population Survey. This year, not so much. In the midst of the Covid-19 Recession, the treasure trove of data has lost much of its predictive power. But still, wow. Median household income soared to a record high of $68,703 in 2019. The median increased by 6.8 percent between 2018 and 2019, after adjusting for inflation. This is the biggest one-year increase in the history of the series dating back to 1967. 

Or is it? Could the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 have caused the outsized increase in median household income in 2019? It doesn't seem possible, but the answer is yes, according to Census Bureau analysts Jonathan Rothbaum and Adam Bee. Here's why... 

The Census Bureau fields the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey in March of each year, with respondents asked to report their income for the previous year. The income statistics for 2019 were collected in March 2020—in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Not surprisingly, survey response rates were abnormally low—10 percentage points lower in March 2020 than in the same month of 2019. When Rothbaum and Bee analyzed response rates by demographic characteristic, they discovered that higher-income households were more likely than lower-income households to respond to the CPS during the pandemic. This nonresponse bias inflated the estimate of household income. 

After adjusting for nonresponse bias, median household income in 2019 is an estimated $66,790 rather than the published and official figure of $68,703. The adjustment reduces the 2018–19 increase in median household income to a more modest 3.9 percent rather than 6.8 percent. 

The good news is that median household income in 2019 is still the highest on record, even after the adjustment for nonresponse bias. The 3.9 percent increase in median household income between 2018 and 2019 may not have been the biggest on record, but it was still pretty big—in the 93rd percentile of annual increases. "The adjusted estimates would indicate that 2019 (from the 2020 CPS ASEC) was still a very good year for income," the researchers conclude.

Source: Census Bureau, Coronavirus Infects Surveys, Too: Nonresponse Bias during the Pandemic in the CPS ASEC

How Wrong Are the Official Counts of Gig Work?

Eyebrows were raised a few months ago when the Bureau of Labor Statistics Contingent Worker Supplement revealed no growth in the alternative workforce between 2005 (the last time the survey was taken) and 2017, despite the apparent growth of the gig economy. Surprise turned to dismay when the Bureau admitted its failure to successfully measure "electronically mediated employment"— or gig work arranged and paid for through online platforms.

Could it be that the Bureau of Labor Statistics' effort to measure a growing and vital segment of the workforce is way off track? The answer is yes. Although study after study after study finds a substantial percentage of Americans participating in the gig economy, these workers are eluding the government's official efforts to measure them.

There's a reason for this. The employment questions asked by the monthly Current Population Survey, which is the official measure of the labor force, do not capture informal work activity. This is the finding of a National Bureau of Economic Research study by Katharine G. Abraham of the University of Maryland and Ashley Amaya of RTI International.

The Current Population Survey asks respondents whether they did any work for 'pay' or 'profit' during the survey reference week. It also asks whether respondents have more than one 'job' or 'business.' Abraham and Amaya have a problem with these questions, which were formulated years ago when the labor force was less complex: "It is not clear...that respondents are likely to think of money earned through informal work activity as either 'pay' or 'profit' or to consider such activity to be a 'job' or 'business.'" To test this hypothesis, they surveyed Mechanical Turk (Amazon's crowdsourcing platform) participants and asked respondents not only the standard CPS employment questions but also additional questions to probe for informal work activity.

What a difference those additional questions made. Fully 22 percent of respondents had engaged in additional work activity in the past week that would have been missed by the CPS. Among those identified by the CPS questions as having no work activity in the past week, 23.5 percent had engaged in informal paid work. Among those identified by the CPS as having one job in the past week, 23.3 percent were engaging in informal work as well. Among those the CPS identified as having two jobs, an additional 15.9 percent also performed informal paid work on top of their busy schedules. Those who engaged in informal work in the past week devoted a substantial 8.2 hours, on average, to the activity.

The researchers admit that their Mechanical Turk sample is not representative of the U.S. population as a whole. But, they say, their findings "provide important evidence about the sensitivity of survey estimates to asking more probing questions." It's too late for this insight to make a difference in the long-awaited (12 years!) 2017 Contingent Worker Supplement, which took "as its starting point the employment reported in response to the standard CPS questions." Let's hope the Bureau of Labor Statistics will take these findings seriously and field a better survey of the gig workforce—ASAP.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research, Probing for Informal Work Activity, Working Paper 24880 ($5)

2016 Median Household Income Still Below 1999 Peak

Median household income climbed 3.2 percent in 2016 to $59,039, according to the Census Bureau. This median appears to be a record high, surpassing the long-standing 1999 median of $58,665 (in 2016 dollars). Unfortunately, the two medians are not comparable because of a redesign of the Current Population Survey's income questions in 2014. The new income questions capture much more income from IRA and 401(k) withdrawals, which resulted in a methodological boost to median household income.

So how does the $59,039 median of 2016 compare with the 1999 all-time high after accounting for changes in methodology? We still haven't caught up, according to the Economic Policy Institute, which for comparative purposes adjusted the medians prior to 2013 for changes in CPS methodology. Here are the results of the Institute's analysis...

Median household income (in 2016 dollars)
2016: $59,039
2007: $59,993 (adjusted)
1999: $60,506 (adjusted)

With the 1999 and 2007 medians adjusted to reflect new CPS methodology, the 2016 median is 1.6 percent below the 2007 median, when the Great Recession began. The 2016 median is 2.4 percent below the 1999 median, which is still the all-time high.

Source: Economic Policy Institute, By the Numbers: Income and Poverty, 2016