Tracking PSID Families in the Gulf States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama

Katherine McGonagle, University of Michigan
Eva Leissou, University of Michigan
April Beaule, University of Michigan
Frank Stafford, University of Michigan

The 34th wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) was underway when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast causing devastation along the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. By this point in the 2005 PSID field period, more than 90% of the families in these three Gulf states had completed their interviews. With a special grant from the NSF and DHS, a series of tracking steps was implemented prior to the 2007 wave of data collection to find these families who may have relocated for various reasons related to Hurricane Katrina, putting them at high risk for subsequent attrition. This paper describes the effectiveness of steps taken during the fall of 2006 to locate the families residing in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina who are part of the longitudinal sample of the PSID in order to enhance the likelihood of their retention in the 2007 wave.