National Beneficiary Survey (NBS) Round Six

General NBS Round Six Documentation
Public Use Files
        Public Use File Round Six Documentation
        Public Use Round Six Data Files

National Beneficiary Survey (NBS) Round Six

In 2017, we fielded the round six NBS to two samples: (1) a sample of all beneficiaries (the Representative Beneficiary Sample, or RBS), and (2) a sample of beneficiaries who had recently maintained a minimum level of earnings for a sustained period (a “successful worker” sample, or SWS). The SWS sample was limited to SSI and SSDI beneficiaries who were eligible for the RBS, but were considered “successful workers” because they had earnings above SSA’s monthly non-blind substantial gainful activity (SGA) level ($1,130 in 2016 and $1,170 in 2017) for a minimum of three consecutive calendar months. We also required that their successful work occurred no more than six months prior to their interview, so that details about their work were still fresh.

For round six, we completed interviews with 4,002 individuals in the national sample of beneficiaries and 4,587 from the Successful Worker Sample, for a total of 8,589 interviews completed across both sub-samples. Because the samples were drawn independently, individuals could be selected for both samples. After removing a small number of duplicates, the number of unique completed interviews was 8,410. The weighted response rate for the Representative Beneficiary Sample was 58.8 percent. The weighted response rate for the Successful Worker Sample was 41.3 percent.

The files below contain the final weights for the NBS Round 6 data. As noted in the User’s Guide (Sections II.B, VI.A, and VI.C) the sample was drawn from a provisional sample frame which did not include all successful workers due to lags in the reporting and posting of earnings for some beneficiaries. Because of these lags, SSA earnings information remains substantially incomplete for up to three years after work occurs. As a consequence, the prior NBS Round 6 data files that were released in January 2019 included provisional weights. The 2021 NBS Round 6 files below have final weights based on updated November 2020 information, which provides complete earnings information for the 2017 NBS sample.

General NBS Round Six Documentation

We are providing the following NBS documentation in PDF format (these documents relate to the full restricted use version of the NBS data, but most of the information in these files is applicable to the public use files as well):

NBS R6 Editing, Coding, Weighting, and Imputation Report
NBS R6 Data Quality Report
NBS R6 User's Guide
NBS R6 Questionnaire
NBS R6 Non-Response Bias Report

Public Use Files

The public use files are available for the round six Representative Beneficiary Sample and for the Representative Beneficiary Samples from earlier rounds. For more information on the public use files, visit the public use files page.

Public Use Files Round Six Documentation

We are providing the following NBS documentation in PDF format:
NBS R6 PUF Codebook

Public Use Round Six Data Files

We are providing the following NBS data file in SAS 9.4 format:
R6NBSPUF030921_SAS.zip

We are providing the following NBS data file in CSV format:
R6NBSPUF030921_CSV.zip

We are providing the following NBS data file in Stata format:
R6NBSPUF030921_STATA.zip