Incorporating real income data

We enhanced the CUSP data model to incorporate actual child household income data from clients’ administrative data systems, notably systems that house state subsidy data. In prior CUSP versions, household incomes for children served by subsidy programs were imputed using Census data and state-specific program eligibility requirements. In our latest release, we modified the CUSP extract, transform, and load (ETL) process to integrate household income data into the CUSP data model, thus improving data accuracy and modeling outcomes.

FEATURES
  • Enhanced CUSP ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) process to ingest and integrate child-level income data.
  • The updated CUSP income methodology incorporates raw income data as well as income as a multiple of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and of the state median income (SMI) for every state.
A visual aid that explains how real child income is being incorporated in state subsidy program requirements in CUSP's ETL

Benefits

  • Enhanced accuracy in data and modeling of characteristics of children served by state subsidy, which is typically the largest child care funding program in most states.
  • More flexible analytical options, including, for instance, the comparison between the distribution of children served by subsidy based on income segment and the distribution of children based on actual household income.
  • Allows the analytical distinction between children served by subsidy based on their household incomes versus those served by subsidy because of other needs prioritized by states.