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SPMFAMUNIT
SPM unit identification number
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Description

SPMFAMUNIT uniquely identifies the family units used to calculate the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).

SPM family units can differ from official poverty units in several ways, including treating cohabiting partners as members of the same family, treating foster children under age 22 and children under 15 with no identifiable relatives in the household as members of the householder's family, and including all related members of a household regardless of their relationship to the household head.

Users should be aware that the ACS only collects information about the relationship to the household head, rather than detailed information about the relationships between all residents. To determine family units for calculating the SPM, the Census Bureau developed a method to assign parent and spouse identifiers based on relationship pointers developed by IPUMS. For more information on how the Census Bureau determines family units and the calculation of SPM, please see the Supplemental Poverty Measure Using the American Community Survey working paper.

Users should also note that SPMFAMUNIT is not unique between sample years and should be combined with either SAMPLE or YEAR to uniquely identify family units when using multiple datasets.