A blog post from BEA Director Vipin Arora
“The reporting system that has been developed under the Social Security and Railroad Retirement Acts approaches the ideal as a source for income estimates.”
That statement, tucked away on page 63 of the first methodological handbook for the national accounts, is as true today as it was in 1951. The reporting system? Today we call it the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, or QCEW. It’s published by our friends at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
QCEW is truly a gem. It provides a quarterly count of employment and wages reported by employers that covers more than 95 percent of U.S. jobs. The data are available at the county, state, and national levels, including detailed industry data.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of the QCEW to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. These data are a key input across our national, international, and regional statistics. For example, the measures of national compensation in personal income are based primarily on the QCEW. QCEW data is also used to allocate the employment of newly acquired U.S. companies across states in our new foreign direct investment statistics.
The power of the QCEW really becomes apparent at the state and local level. Our regional estimates—such as state personal income and county gross domestic product—are based primarily on publicly available QCEW data.
Excitingly, we’ve been able to improve the quality of our state and county statistics in recent years because most states have been willing to securely share QCEW microdata with BEA. We’re appreciative of the roughly 40 states that make the QCEW microdata available for improving BEA’s estimates.
I’d encourage other states to take this step—and strengthen the national data infrastructure on which all of us depend.