New Linked Data from the 1990 U.S. Census

Katie Genadek, University of Colorado Boulder
Trent Alexander, University of Michigan

In late 2026, the Census Bureau will release the first-ever linked file from the 1990 U.S. Census. Since 2020, our team has worked to digitize images of the 1990 Census manuscripts, capture respondent names from those files, and incorporate the records into a longitudinal infrastructure spanning from 1940-2020. We describe the new 1990 Census linked data file, provide an overview of how it fits into the broader infrastructure, and use high-quality longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to assess the quality and coverage of the linked data.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 203. Digitization and Linkage of the 1990 United States Census