Author: Carl Frederick
Company: Univ of Wisc-Madison

COR 850a – Base hourly wage construction

Note: The sas code accompanying this description can be found in cor850b.sas

Following the guidelines set out in cor582, the 2003-2005 base hourly wage construction changed in only minor ways from the .  

- In the current wave we did not ascertain hours worked at all jobs so if the respondent is missing the hours of work per week at the pre-retirement job she or he is assumed to work 40 hours a week.

- If the payment amount is missing (don’t know, refused, not ascertained) or outside the valid bounds in the raw data, we calculate the base hourly wage rate assuming the respondent worked 52 weeks per year and either the reported hours worked per week or 40 hrs/week if missing.  The total yearly income is the sum of variables gp202re (total annual wages salaries and tips) and gp204re (total annual business income).  If one of these variables is missing then the total yearly income is equal to the non-missing variable.  If both are missing then the respondent gets a missing value of -2.

Like the updated 1992-1993 variables the following conversions apply:
	
- Hourly earnings are transferred directly across after conversion from cents to dollars

- Biweekly earnings are divided by 2*hours worked per week or 2*40 if the hours are missing

- Monthly earnings are divided by 4.33 weeks per month * hours worked per week or 4.33*40 if hours are missing

- Full time, Full year annual earnings are divided by 52 weeks per year * hours worked per week or 52*40 if hours are missing

- Annual earnings from less than full time or full year occupations are divided by the months worked*4.33 weeks per month*hours worked per week or 
months*4.33*40 if hours are missing.

- If full time full year status is missing, respondents are assumed to work full time full year and are coded accordingly