EMPLOY: Employment Security Study, 1966 (ICPSR 7082)

Data collected by Peter M. Blau and Richard A. Schoenherr

The data for this study were collected from the 53 employment security agencies in the United States which are responsible for administering unemployment insurance and providing public employment services in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The data were collected in early 1966 from key informants in each agency and from agency and census records. In addition, limited data were collected on the 387 divisions and 120 local offices of the agencies.



C1 State ID#
C2 Size: number of full-time personnel in the agency as of a given date in the first quarter of 1966.
C3 Extent of personnel regulations: number of words in the rules book covering employment, in thousands.
C4 Civil service appointments: number of competitive assessions divided by total accessions x 100 for fiscal years 1964, 1965, and 1966; the three percentages then averaged.
C5 Salary of interviewers: annual salary for new interviewers (in dollars) averaged over three review periods of six months each, ending January 1, 1965, July 1, 1965, and January 1, 1966.
C6 Automation: score based on number of computers and input/output units; coded into thirteen categories.
C7 Educational requirements: those for the entry level interviewer position set by the state's civil service department; coded with an ordinal scale in four categories (1-4).
C8 Educational qualifications: number of interviewers with B.A.'s appointed during 1965 divided by the total number appointed that year, x 100.
C9 Divisions: number of major subunits in the headquarters whose head reports to the director of his deputy; a division must have at least five people.
C10 Levels: number of supervisory strata in the headquarters division with the most supervisory strata; assistant supervisors and deputies are not counted as distinct levels.
C11 Division heads' span of control: sum of all supervisory and nonsupervisory personnel who report directly to division heads, divided by the number of divisions.
C12 Clerical ratio: sum of all clerical personnel divided by total personnel in the agency, x 100.
C13 Staff ratio: number of administrative, staff, and technical equivalent positions divided by total personnel at the headquarters, x 100.
C14 Delegation-personnel: locus of responsibility for hiring personnel to fill a supervisory position; coded with an ordinal scale in four categories (1-4) with a high school indicating decentralized authority.
C15 Delegation-budget: budget-making process coded with an ordinal scale in four categories (0-3).
C16 Decentralization-influence: number of division heads who claim influence in all major structural changes in their own division or in other subunits divided by number of division heads answering question, x 100.
C17 Communication with governor or commissioner: number of times per year the director discusses agency matters with his superior (the governor or the commissioner).
C18 Applications per initial claim: average number of new applications for march, June, September, and December.
C19 GATB's per application: average number of General Aptitude Test Batteries administered in March, June, September, and December 1966, divided by average number of new applications for the same months.
C20 Placements per opening: average number of non-agricultural placements for March, June, September, and December 1966, divided by average number of non-agricultural openings received for the same months.
C21 Employee-client ratio in benefit function: number of benefit positions per 1,000 average insured unemployed, fiscal year 1965.
C22 Merit system coverage: dummy variable with those states in which the merit system or civil service department covers nearly all state employees coded 1, and other states with only partial coverage coded 0, 1963.
C23 Sections per division: number of sections in the headquarters divided by number of divisions; a section is a subunit in a division whose head reports to the division head.
C24 % foreign stock: 1960 (this variable may not be correct)
C25 Population expansion: population change, 1950 to 1960.
C26 Median family income: median years completed, 1960.
C27 Median family income: 1959, in hundreds of dollars.
C28 % manufacturing employees: number of full-time and part-time employees in manufacturing, 1963, divided by population estimate, 1963, in hundreds.
C29 % total unemployed: number of unemployed as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau divided by the total civilian labor force, 1960.
C30 Population: 1965 estimate, in thousands.
C31 Governor's appointive power: extent of formal influence that the governor has over the appointment of the chief administrator for each of sixteen major functions and offices in the state. An interval scale (0-100) based on a six-point ordinal subscale used to score the governor's power of appointment over each of the sixteen functions.
C32 Expenditures per capita: state and local general expenditures per capita, 1964-1965, in dollars.
C33 Funds/taxes: ratio of federal funds allocated to states for employment security administration to federal unemployment tax collections, fiscal year 1963, in hundreds.
C34 Benefit duration: average potential duration of benefit payments for insured claimants, in weeks, for 1966.
C35 % government employees: number of state government employees divided by 1965 state population estimate, both in thousands.
C36 % urban: 1960.
C37 % nonagricultural employees: number of nonagricultural employees divided by the total civilian labor force, 1960.
C38 % insured unemployed: average weekly insured unemployment for 1966 in raw numbers divided by the population estimate for 1965 in hundreds.
C39 Applications per employee: average number of new applications for March, June, September, and December 1966, divided by size (as defined for variable 1).
C40 Midwestern region: dummy variable with states in south coded 1 and others 0.
C41 Southern region: dummy variable with states in South coded 1 and others 0.
C42 Western region: dummy variable with states in West coded 1 and other 0.