Official Charge to the Committee

CNSTAT Panel on the 

Redesign of the CE

February 8, 2011

Mike Horrigan

Associate Commissioner

Office of Prices and Living 

Conditions 1
Mission of the CE

The mission of the Consumer Expenditure Survey 

program (CE) is to collect, produce, and 

disseminate information that presents a statistical 

picture of consumer spending for the Consumer 

Price Index, government agencies, and private 

data users. 

2
Mission of the CE

The mission encompasses analyzing CE data to 

produce socio-economic studies of consumer 

spending, and providing CE data users with 

assistance, education, and tools for working with 

the data. 

CE supports the mission of the Bureau of Labor 

Statistics, and therefore CE data must be of 

consistently high statistical quality, relevant, 

timely, and must protect respondent 

confidentiality.

3
CNSTAT Tasks

Summary of Work Statement

 The National Research Council, through its 

Committee on National Statistics, will convene an 

Expert Panel to contribute to the planned 

redesign of the Consumer Expenditure (CE) 

Surveys by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 

(BLS). 

 The Panel will review the output of a data user 

needs forum and a methods workshop, both 

convened by BLS.

4
CNSTAT Tasks

Summary of Work Statement

 The Panel will conduct a household survey data 

producer workshop to ascertain the experience of 

leading survey organizations in dealing with the 

types of challenges faced by the CE surveys.

 The Panel will conduct a workshop on redesign 

options for the CE surveys.

 The redesign options workshop will be based on 

papers on design options the Panel commissions 

from one or more organizations.

5
CNSTAT Tasks

Summary of Work Statement

 Based on the workshops and its deliberations, 

the Panel will produce a consensus report at the 

conclusion of a 24-month study with findings and 

recommendations for BLS to consider in 

determining the characteristics of the redesigned 

CE surveys.

6
What CE expects from the report

 A. The report should synthesize information 

gathered through the BLS data user needs 

forum, BLS methods workshop, CNSTAT 

household survey data producer workshop, 

CNSTAT CE redesign options workshop, and 

independent papers into multiple comprehensive 

design recommendations. 

7
What CE expects from the report

 A. Design recommendations (ctn)

The design recommendations should include a 

menu of comprehensive design options with the 

highest potential, not one specific all-or-nothing 

design. 

The design recommendations should be flexible to 

allow for variation in program budget, staffing 

resources and skills, ability of the data collection 

contractors to implement, legal agreements to be 

obtained (e.g., access to other data sources), etc.

8
What CE expects from the report

 B. The report will include recommendations 

about future research that needs to be done, but 

that is not the focus. As much as possible, the 

focus should be on concrete design proposals 

that could be implemented.

 C. The report should focus on a comprehensive 

design, and include an approximate timeline for 

development, pilot testing, and implementation.

 This timeline should not exceed 5 years for development and 

pilot testing, and a new survey in the field within 10 years.

9
What CE expects from the report

 D. In the recommendation, the Panel should 

focus special attention on addressing issues with 

the current CE surveys:

Underreporting of expenditures

Fundamental changes in the social environment for 

collection of survey data 

Fundamental changes in the retail environment (e.g., 

online spending, automatic payments)

The potential availability of large amounts of 

expenditure data from a relatively small number of 

intermediaries such as credit card companies

Declining response rates at the unit, wave and item 

levels 10
What CE expects from the report

 E. The Panel should develop a carefully balanced 

evaluation of the prospective benefits, costs and 

risks of their proposed design recommendations 

compared to the current CE surveys. 

The evaluation be based on extensive and 

carefully balanced evaluation of literature and 

industry knowledge on methodology and practice 

that is currently available or likely to be available 

in practical form in the next five years; 

11
What CE expects from the report

 E. Balanced evaluation (ctn)

data collection technologies currently available or likely 

to be available in practical form with the next five 

years; 

administrative record and external data sources and 

technologies currently available or likely to be available 

in practical form with the next five years; and

the evaluation should be reflective of the tradeoff 

between cost and improvement on measurement error.

12
Two Roads to CE Redesign

 CE is pursuing two roads to the redesign:

a redesign from scratch, and 

changes within the current design

 The focus of the Panel should be on the redesign 

from scratch. In doing so, BLS would like the 

Panel to keep the following considerations in 

mind:

13
Two Roads to CE Redesign

 The Panel should be aware of the research that 

CE is undertaking to improve the current design.

Web Diary

Individual Diaries

Streamlining the Interview Survey

Reducing the length of the bounding interview

Double placement of diaries

Reconciliation of expenditures and income/assets

14
Two Roads to CE Redesign

 In considering a new design options, CE is 

particularly interested in approaches that focus 

on proactive approaches to gathering 

expenditure data

Examples can include information gathered from 

records, receipts, etc. or by providing respondents 

the ability to easily record purchases in real time. 

While retrieval of data from memory in a standard 

reactive interview is appropriate for a number of 

data elements, CE views a proactive data 

collection methodology for expenditure data as a 

high priority. 

15
What we know

 Need to stay within budget

 Need to maintain the value of the survey to 

taxpayers and data users

 Need to support the needs of CPI

 Need to support other data users as much as 

possible as long as the design meets the needs 

of the core CE mission

 What makes CE unique is the complete picture of 

spending, in all categories, at the household 

level, with household income, assets and 

demographics.

16
What we don’t know

 The final level of expenditure detail that will be 

needed to support CPI’s needs after redesign

CE has a very detailed set of current technical 

requirements from CPI.

In cases where CE does not provide enough detail 

to meet CPI’s needs, CPI adopts alternative 

approaches.

– Example: Level of detail in the CE for gasoline

– Example: CE sample size is not sufficient such as in 

calculating Entry Level Item selection probabilities at the 

PSU level

17
What we don’t know

 CPI final post design requirements (ctn)

CE is currently looking anew at its own data 

requirements and in that process will attempt to 

clearly state where it can and cannot meet CPI’s 

needs in terms of CPI’s current detailed technical 

requirements. 

– A report will be completed by the end of April, in 

advance of the award of the contract for the redesign 

option RFP.

18
What we don’t know

 CPI final post design requirements (ctn)

As the redesign process develops it is critical that 

ongoing dialog be maintained between CE and CPI 

in terms of how the redesign options would 

affect/change the CPI’s current detailed technical 

requirements.

– In particular, CPI will need to make assessments as to 

the efficacy of the inputs received from CE, along with 

possible alternative approaches, to meet its technical 

requirements.

– BLS views this dialog as an iterative process that must 

accompany the evaluation of redesign options. 19
What we don’t know

 What importance should we place on possible 

future CPI information needs that could be 

provided by a redesigned CE?

Rob Cage’s presentation, along with supporting 

documentation outlines some possible future CPI 

information needs that could be provided possibly 

by a redesigned CE.

Example: collection of the name of the outlet 

where purchases were made.

20
What we don’t know

 These possible future CPI information needs are 

not requirements of the redesigned CE. 

CE views these future information needs as ones 

to be evaluated in terms of the following:

– Does the redesign meet the data needs of CE?

– Does the redesign meet the current requirements of CPI, an 

assessment of which includes an evaluation by CPI of the efficacy of 

alternative approaches in the cases where the redesigned CE does not 

meet its current technical detailed requirements.

– Within the framework of the redesigned CE, is there sufficient flexibility, 

especially with respect to time and cognitive burden, to collect 

additional data from respondents that could meet possible future 

information needs by CPI? 21
What we don’t know

 Possible administrative data sources that could 

be used to replace some of the data CE collects, 

or could be used to model data.

 All of the feasible technological solutions for data 

collection.

 Data users’ reaction to collecting less than the 

complete picture of spending and using more 

imputed/modeled data to create that missing data.

22
What we don’t know

That is, would they find it acceptable to collect 

less data, either as part of a multiple matrix 

design, or because there are some expenses we 

won’t collect, either because they are too hard to 

collect (like tolls on trips) or because they are 

such a small percentage of total spending (like 

reading materials)?

Whether an approach to impute/model for a much 

larger amount of missing data is feasible depends 

on the reaction of data users and issues related to 

staffing and implementing a much larger statistical 

modeling system into production. 23
What we don’t know

Or would a split sample and data collection design 

be feasible – one that is based on a smaller 

sample for which all expenditures are collected 

and a larger sample that takes advantage of 

matrix sampling and greatly reduces the burden of 

any given interview.

24
Consensus on the redesign so far

 CE needs to publish a complete picture of 

spending, but we do not need to collect all of 

those data directly from respondents.

 To reduce burden and improve data quality, CE is 

interested in moving away from a retrospective 

recall based design to one that is more proactive. 

25
Consensus on the redesign so far

 Proactive design (ctn)

The current Interview design calls for collecting 

almost all categories of spending from all 

households (the Diary is used to collect some 

small frequently purchased items, food and 

clothing). For the most part, this collection is done 

through a three-month recall. 

The proposed design should not be based on a 

retrospective recall survey, but instead should 

focus on features that are proactive in collecting 

information from respondents or other sources. 26
Consensus on the redesign so far

 Proactive design (ctn)

These design elements would be fundamentally 

different from those of the current CE surveys, 

and potentially include innovative features such as 

the use of mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, 

PDAs, tablets), financial software, electronic 

purchase records, receipt scanning, and auxiliary 

data. 

Retrospective recall may be incorporated into the 

proposed design as a method of “filling in gaps” or 

collecting information not otherwise provided. 27
Consensus on the redesign so far

 The constraint of maintaining the current budget 

needs to be considered, particularly since moving 

data capture from a respondent recall based 

approach to one involving greater use of technology 

and data extraction from receipts, scanners, and 

administrative sources has the potential to increase 

collection costs.

28
Consensus on the redesign so far

 The CE Program produces two main data 

products: published tables and microdata files.

Currently, data from the CE Interview (for large 

and regular purchases) and data from the CE 

Diary (for small and difficult to recall items) are 

integrated at an aggregate level for publication 

tables.

They are NOT integrated in the microdata files.

29
Consensus on the redesign so far

 Integration of data (ctn)

The redesigned CE may capture data from a 

variety of sources (scanners, receipts, diaries, 

recall interviews, administrative sources).

The redesigned CE must allow for a straightforward integration of the various data sources 

into one complete picture of spending at the 

microdata level.

30
FY 2011 Budget

 The FY 2011 budget provides funding for the CE 

program that will allow for a research sample to 

conduct field tests of redesign options.

 If this initiative is not funded, CE will continue to 

use its existing resources, which includes the 

ability to conduct field tests on production 

sample units, to explore redesign options.

 Receipt of the FY 2011 CE funding initiative will 

place the work of redesign on a faster track.

31
Contact Information

Mike Horrigan

Associate Commissioner

Office of Prices and Living 

Conditions

www.bls.gov

202-691-5735

horrigan.michael@bls.gov