Supporting Services

Support

CPS Utilities subscribers may obtain free support on all aspects of installation and usage of the utilities, and are also welcome to pick our brains with questions relating to the Current Population Surveys in general. Simply contact us by email, telephone, fax, or mail.

Download latest software

Subscribers may get the benefits of the latest CPS Utilities software and general documentation at any time by downloading the current version from us. All you have to do is follow the onscreen instructions. There is no charge.

The current version is 5.05.0054, released September 15, 2005. You can check your version by clicking Help in the menu bar of any CPS Utilities screen, and selecting 'About CPS Utilities'. For brevity, we usually just call it Version 5.5.

The software and general documentation are two of the three elements of CPS Utilities. The other is the CPS data (including data-related files such as the variable documentation), which are only available on CDs or DVDs.

The latest software is always compatible with earlier data and documentation. When installation is complete, you will be ready to access your existing data and variable documentation files with the latest CPS Utilities software. See Version Compatibility for additional details.

For complete installation instructions, as well as much other valuable information about CPS Utilities, consult the User's Manual.

Recent changes

Version 5.5 was first released September 15, 2005. In addition to adding the 2005 March data, version 5.5 includes several new general documents, accessible from the Entry screen General Documentation button. They include:

GAO Paper: Metropolitan Statistical Areas, June 2004
This 97-page report describes the changes made to the way geographical areas of the United States are defined in CPS files after mid-2004.
Frequently asked questions
This is a copy of the CPS FAQs on this web site.

The March CPS Utilities with the 2005 data update also includes all the data revisions to the 2004 March files released during the past 12 months, including:

Noncash benefits and after-tax variables for 2004
Earlier in 2005, the Census Bureau released patch files containing data for these variables, which had been withheld when the files were first released.
Household, family, and person weights updated
The patch files included revised weight values, recalculated to provide better estimates of children by single year of age.
Person identifier variable revised
The unique person identifier, peridnum, was corrected and lengthened to 22 characters.

Download CPS Utilities demonstration version

You may preview the features of CPS Utilities at no charge by downloading the demonstration version. All you have to do is follow the onscreen instructions.

The demonstration version does everything the full version does except extract data. Instead of a data extraction, it produces specimen output files in your selected format. It contains the full documentation set for the Annual Demographic and Income Supplement (the March CPS), as well as the search tools, appendices, and all the other CPS Utilities features.

Since CPS Utilities contains very many documentation files, this demo version may take a while to download and install. Please be patient if it appears to hang during installation, it will eventually continue. The CD/DVD version installs faster and gives better progress messages.

If you're not sure yet whether you need CPS Utilities, check out the demo. You'll be impressed.

Version Compatibility