1 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Consumer Expenditure 

Surveys Public-Use Microdata

(PUMD) Overview

Jimmy Choi

Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys

CE Microdata User’s Workshop

July 18-20, 2018
2 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS TATISTICS • bls.gov bls.gov

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.

 Data are provided through various file types.
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— U.S. BUREAU OFLABORSTATISTICS TATISTICS• bls.gov bls.gov 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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— U.S. BUREAU OFLABORSTATISTICS TATISTICS• bls.gov bls.gov 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

 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

 Users’ Documentation (Interview and Diary)

 Hierarchical groupings

 Sample code

 Errata
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Users’ Documentation

 Describes the content and methods for the data collected within the Interview and 

Diary Survey

 Includes definitions of our flags

 Valid? Allocated? Imputed? Topcoded? Suppressed? A little of each? 

 Estimation procedures/formulas

 How to produce a collection year estimate

 How to produce a calendar year estimate

 Information on changes to the data. 

 Variable changes

 Questionnaire/Decennial Census sample redesign
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Hierarchical Groupings

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 Establishes a relation between the published tables’ series 

and their contributing expenditure classification codes (UCC)

 Contains information on table aggregation, source selection, 

and UCC labels

 Three separate stub files are available

– Interview Stub: IStubYYYY.txt 

– Diary Stub: DStubYYYY.txt

– Integrated Stub: IntStubYYYY.txt
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Hierarchical Groupings

IntStub2015, https://www.bls.gov/cex/pumd/2015/csxintstub.txt
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Sample Programs

 SAS 

 R

 STATA

 Goal is to replicate totals in the CE published tables 

https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables.htm

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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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2017 PUMD Release

 September 11th, 2018
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Reminder!

 Microdata File Structure

Wednesday (7/18/18) at 9:45 a.m. - Arcenis Rojas 

 Balancing Respondent Confidentiality and Data User Needs

Wednesday (7/18/18) at 1:00 p.m. - Aaron Cobet 

 State Weights: Providing More Geographic Data

Thursday (7/19/18) at 9:40 a.m. - Taylor Wilson

 User's Guide to Income Imputation in the CE

Friday (7/20/18) at 1:30 p.m. - Geoffrey Paulin
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Jimmy Choi

Economist

Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys

202-691-7081

Choi.Jimmy@bls.gov