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Impute unavailable prior-year CPS income #837

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fa52ad8
Impute unavailable prior-year CPS income
MaxGhenis Apr 27, 2026
be98823
Sanitize prior-year income fallback sentinels
MaxGhenis Apr 27, 2026
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1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions changelog.d/837.fixed
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
Impute unavailable CPS prior-year wage and self-employment income instead of emitting sentinel values.
43 changes: 37 additions & 6 deletions policyengine_us_data/datasets/cps/cps.py
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -1108,6 +1108,8 @@ def add_previous_year_income(self, cps: h5py.File) -> None:
)
return

prior_year_income_sentinels = {-1, -9999}

with (
_open_dataset_read_only(self.raw_cps) as cps_current_year_data,
_open_dataset_read_only(self.previous_year_raw_cps) as cps_previous_year_data,
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1137,19 +1139,48 @@ def add_previous_year_income(self, cps: h5py.File) -> None:

joined_data = cps_current_year.join(previous_year_data)[
[
"WSAL_VAL",
"SEMP_VAL",
"employment_income_last_year",
"self_employment_income_last_year",
"I_ERNVAL",
"I_SEVAL",
]
]
].rename(
{
"WSAL_VAL": "current_year_employment_income",
"SEMP_VAL": "current_year_self_employment_income",
},
axis=1,
)

invalid_previous_year_income = joined_data.employment_income_last_year.isin(
prior_year_income_sentinels
) | joined_data.self_employment_income_last_year.isin(prior_year_income_sentinels)
joined_data.loc[
invalid_previous_year_income,
["employment_income_last_year", "self_employment_income_last_year"],
] = np.nan
joined_data.loc[
joined_data.current_year_employment_income.isin(prior_year_income_sentinels),
"current_year_employment_income",
] = np.nan
joined_data.loc[
joined_data.current_year_self_employment_income.isin(
prior_year_income_sentinels
),
"current_year_self_employment_income",
] = np.nan

joined_data["previous_year_income_available"] = (
~joined_data.employment_income_last_year.isna()
& ~joined_data.self_employment_income_last_year.isna()
& (joined_data.I_ERNVAL == 0)
& (joined_data.I_SEVAL == 0)
)
joined_data = joined_data.fillna(-1).drop(["I_ERNVAL", "I_SEVAL"], axis=1)
joined_data["employment_income_last_year"] = joined_data[
"employment_income_last_year"
].fillna(joined_data["current_year_employment_income"])
joined_data["self_employment_income_last_year"] = joined_data[
"self_employment_income_last_year"
].fillna(joined_data["current_year_self_employment_income"])
joined_data = joined_data.fillna(0)

# CPS already ordered by PERIDNUM, so the join wouldn't change the order.
cps["employment_income_last_year"] = joined_data[
Expand Down
54 changes: 54 additions & 0 deletions tests/unit/datasets/test_cps_file_handles.py
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -42,6 +42,8 @@ def test_add_previous_year_income_closes_raw_cps_handles():
current_person = pd.DataFrame(
{
"PERIDNUM": [10, 20],
"WSAL_VAL": [1_100, 2_100],
"SEMP_VAL": [110, 210],
"I_ERNVAL": [0, 0],
"I_SEVAL": [0, 0],
}
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -79,6 +81,56 @@ def test_add_previous_year_income_closes_raw_cps_handles():
assert previous_store.closed is True


def test_add_previous_year_income_imputes_unavailable_rows():
current_person = pd.DataFrame(
{
"PERIDNUM": [10, 20, 30, 40, 50],
"WSAL_VAL": [1_100, 2_100, 3_100, 4_100, -1],
"SEMP_VAL": [110, 210, 310, 410, -9999],
"I_ERNVAL": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
"I_SEVAL": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
}
)
previous_person = pd.DataFrame(
{
"PERIDNUM": [10, 20, 30],
"WSAL_VAL": [1_000, 2_000, -9999],
"SEMP_VAL": [100, -1, 300],
"I_ERNVAL": [0, 0, 0],
"I_SEVAL": [0, 0, 0],
}
)

current_store = _FakeStore(current_person)
previous_store = _FakeStore(previous_person)

current_dataset = type("CurrentDataset", (_FakeDataset,), {"store": current_store})
previous_dataset = type(
"PreviousDataset", (_FakeDataset,), {"store": previous_store}
)

holder = SimpleNamespace(
raw_cps=current_dataset,
previous_year_raw_cps=previous_dataset,
)
cps = {}

add_previous_year_income(holder, cps)

np.testing.assert_array_equal(
cps["employment_income_last_year"],
[1_000, 2_100, 3_100, 4_100, 0],
)
np.testing.assert_array_equal(
cps["self_employment_income_last_year"],
[100, 210, 310, 410, 0],
)
np.testing.assert_array_equal(
cps["previous_year_income_available"],
[True, False, False, False, False],
)


def test_add_previous_year_income_opens_hdfstores_read_only(tmp_path, monkeypatch):
current_path = tmp_path / "current.h5"
previous_path = tmp_path / "previous.h5"
Expand All @@ -87,6 +139,8 @@ def test_add_previous_year_income_opens_hdfstores_read_only(tmp_path, monkeypatc
store["person"] = pd.DataFrame(
{
"PERIDNUM": [10, 20],
"WSAL_VAL": [1_100, 2_100],
"SEMP_VAL": [110, 210],
"I_ERNVAL": [0, 0],
"I_SEVAL": [0, 0],
}
Expand Down
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