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Consumer Expenditure 

Surveys Public-Use Microdata

(PUMD) Overview

Bryan Rigg

Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys

CE Microdata Users’ Workshop

July 22-24, 2020
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What Are Microdata?

 “In the study of survey and census data, microdata are 

information at the level of individual respondents.” –

Wikipedia

 Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) Public-Use Microdata 

(PUMD) consists of Consumer Unit (CU) level characteristics, 

income, taxes, assets and liabilities, and expenditure data, as 

well as member level characteristics and income data.
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https://www.bls.gov/cex/pumd.htm
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PUMD Data Package

 Data files:

File types available include:

SAS (*.sas7bdat), STATA (*.dta), SPSS (*.sav), comma-delimited (*.csv) 

 Documentation: 

Documents covering specific years (changes with each new PUMD release)

Documents covering all years (Static or evolving documentation)

 Supplementary resources:

Provide information regarding PUMD disclosure methods and requirements
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https://www.bls.gov/cex/pumd_data.htm
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Data Files

 PUMD files contain respondent data collected in either the 

Interview or Diary survey. 

 These data can be used to create and correlate information in a 

variety of ways:

Descriptive Statistics

– How many CU’s in the sample purchased a new car in 2014? 

Inferential Statistics

– What is the average annual expenditure on eggs by all CU’s in the northeast 

region? 
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https://www.bls.gov/cex/csxresearchtables.htm
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https://www.bls.gov/cex/pumd_doc.htm
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Documentation Covering All Years

 CE PUMD Getting Started Guide

Provides documentation for the CE PUMD, its conventions, files, 

sample code, and methodology.

 CE Program Considerations When Using the Public-use 

Microdata

Discusses considerations when preparing and interpreting estimates 

with PUMD
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Documentation Covering All Years

 Dictionary for Interview and Diary Survey (XLSX)

Provides variables and codes from 1996 forward.

 Source selection file (XLSX)

Identifies which survey data item (category) comes from when 

combining the two CE surveys for 1996 forward. 

 Description of Income Imputation 

Provides information on the methods BLS uses to estimate income

since 2004.
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Documentation Covering Specific Years

 Hierarchical groupings

 Establishes a relation between the published tables’ series and their 

contributing expenditure classification codes (UCC).

 Sample code

 Replicates totals in the CE published tables.

 Errata

 Provides information on errors and their correction to the files of a 

particular year. 
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https://www.bls.gov/cex/pumd_sup.htm
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Supplementary Resources

 CE Glossary

 CE FAQ

 User’s guide to income imputation (PDF)

 Protection of respondent confidentiality 

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https://www.bls.gov/cex/csxfaqs.htm#PUMD
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2019 PUMD Release

 September 2020
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Bryan Rigg

Economist

Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys

202-691-5495

Rigg.Bryan@bls.gov