We propose a new methodology that does not assume a prior specification of the statistical properties of the measurement errors and treats all sources as noisy measures of some underlying true value. The unobservable true value can be represented as a weighted average of all available measures, using weights that must be specified a priori unless there has been a truth audit. The Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) survey jobs are linked to Social Security Administration earnings data, creating two potential annual earnings observations. The reliability statistics for both sources are quite similar except for cases where the SIPP used imputations for some missing monthly earnings reports.

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participants at the pre-conference, and especially our discussant, Dan Black, for their comments. This document reports the results of research and analysis undertaken by the U.S. Census Bureau staff. It is released to inform interested parties of ongoing research and to encourage discussion.