Weighting was accomplished using Sample Balancing, a special iterative sample weighting program that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using a statistical technique called the Deming Algorithm. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis ensures that the demographic characteristics of the sample closely approximate the demographic characteristics of the national population. Table 2 reports the disposition of all sampled telephone numbers ever dialed from the original
telephone number samples. The response rate estimates the fraction of all eligible respondents in the sample that were ultimately interviewed. At PSRAI it is calculated by taking the product of three component rates:
Contact rate – the proportion of working numbers where a request for interview was made
Cooperation rate – the proportion of contacted numbers where a consent for interview was at least initially obtained, versus those refused
Completion rate – the proportion of initially cooperating and eligible interviews that were completed
Thus the response rate for the landline sample was 10 percent. The response rate for the cellular sample was 13 percent.