Skills of U.S. Unemployed, Young, and Older Adults in Sharper Focus

The purpose of this report is to present updated and additional results from the U.S. PIAAC household data collection, based on data collected in 2012 and 2014. PIAAC is an international large-scale study of adult skills and life experience focusing on education and employment that was developed and organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). PIAAC was first conducted in 2011−2012 in the United States and 23 other countries. In the United States, PIAAC was administered to a nationally representative sample of 5,000 adults between the ages of 16 and 65. Similar nationally representative samples of adults were surveyed in each of the 23 other participating countries. In 2013-14, NCES conducted a second round of data collection in the United States to enhance the U.S. PIAAC dataset. Specifically, the second round of data collection added (a) 3,600 adults from three key subgroups of policy interest and (b) 1,200 incarcerated adults in federal and state prisons. The three key subgroups of adults “living in households” that were oversampled were: unemployed adults, young adults (ages 16-34), and older adults (ages 66-74). The expanded national household sample (8,600 adults, combining the first and second rounds) supports more accurate and reliable national estimates of unemployed and young adults and makes possible analyses of older adults.

National Center for Education Statistics