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

BLS Advances in Expenditure and Consumption 

Measurement

Thesia I. Garner1 and Adam Safir2

1Chief Researcher, Division of Price and Index Number Research (DPINR)

2Chief, Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE)

CNSTAT Panel Session: 

Projects at Federal Agencies to Support Data & Estimates of Income, Consumption, and Wealth

Integrated System of Household Income, Consumption, and Wealth Data Event

May 16, 2022 (edited May 20, 2022)

NOTE: Version without extra slides
2 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Topics

1. Update on CE Data Quality Projects

2. CE-based Research Related to the Distribution of .....

a. Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE)

b. Consumption as defined for BLS Comprehensive Consumption 

Initiative
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Topic 1

Update on CE Data Quality Projects
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Addressing Weaknesses in CE Data

• Declining response rates

• Lower CE aggregates vs. PCE

• Missed CUs in the upper end of the income distribution
5 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

CE Diary Survey Response Rates
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CE Interview Survey Response Rates
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CE Data Comparisons

Data Type

American 

Community 

Survey 

(ACS)

Current 

Population 

Survey 

(CPS)

Medical 

Expenditure 

Panel Survey 

Home 

(MEPS)

National 

Health 

Expenditure 

Accounts 

(NHEA)

Personal 

Consumption 

Expenditure 

(PCE)

Panel Study 

of Income 

Dynamics 

(PSID)

Residential 

Energy 

Consumption 

Survey 

(RECS)

Income ✔ ✔

Total Expenditures ✔

Healthcare ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Hospital Care ✔ ✔ ✔

Prescription drugs ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Medical supplies and nonprescription drugs ✔ ✔ ✔

Physician's services ✔ ✔

Dental services ✔ ✔ ✔

Rent ✔ ✔ ✔

Utilities ✔ ✔ ✔

Natural gas ✔ ✔ ✔

Electricity ✔ ✔ ✔

Property taxes ✔ ✔

Mortgages ✔ ✔ ✔
8 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Aggregate Expenditures: CE vs. PCE

PCE CE

CE-to-PCE 

ratio

Total durables, nondurables, and services

Total $13,526,689 $8,343,647 .62

Comparable items 8,650,873 6,280,753 .73

Ratio of comparable items to total .64 .75

Durable goods

Total durable goods 1,616,408 938,436 .58

Comparable durable goods 1,306,577 838,840 .64

Ratio of comparable durables to total durables .81 .89

Nondurable goods

Total nondurable goods 3,037,413 1,472,744 .48

Comparable nondurable goods 2,825,314 1,367,465 .48

Ratio of comparable nondurables to total nondurables .93 .93

Services - household consumption expenditures

Total services (Household consumption expenditures) 8,872,868 5,932,468 .67

Comparable services 4,306,883 3,969,170 .92

Ratio of comparable services to total services .49 .67

Summary comparison of aggregate Consumer Expenditures (CE) and 

Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) 

[In millions of dollars]

2020
9 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Update on CE Data Quality Projects

Online diary

 Implementing an online diary to encourage contemporaneous reporting and 

provide a technological platform for future enhancements (e.g., receipt capture, 

geolocation features, etc.)

Streamlined questionnaire

 Implementing a streamlined questionnaire to:

• reduce the number of questions

• facilitate the use of records

• cluster questions together more logically from a respondent’s point of view, and 

• eliminate many kinds of follow up questions 
10 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Update on CE Data Quality Projects

Data imputation

 Developing programs to impute assets and liabilities data using CE reporters only 

• Retirement accounts, IRA, 401(k), thrift savings plans, checking accounts, 

savings accounts, money market, CDs, stocks, bonds, whole life insurance, 

annuities, trusts, and royalties, other assets

• Student loans, credit cards, other types of loans

Data linking

 Evaluate matched IRS data for potential use in imputation and other production 

procedures or edits

 Link Interview Survey and HUD addresses to assess potential benefit of using 

administrative data in CE processing for questions involving housing (not all 

inclusive; many other rental assistance programs, e.g., USDA)
11 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Topic 2

CE-based Research Related to the Distribution of

- Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE)

- Consumption (and joint with Income)

Main difference focused on “fit for purpose”
12 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Follow OECD 2013 Framework for Underlying Concepts

 Consumption expenditure - value of consumption goods and services used or paid for 

by a household to directly meet its needs

 Purchase of select goods and services in the market

 In-kind transfers from employers (e.g., health insurance)

 Household’s own production of goods and services consumed

– Owner-occupied housing

– Owned vehicles

– Durables

– Other (e.g., child/elder care, meals)

 In-kind transfers from other households and from businesses

 Actual final consumption - sum of 

 Consumption expenditure 

 Public in-kind transfers

Source: OECD (2013), OECD Framework for Statistics on the Distribution of Household Income, Consumption and Wealth, OECD Publishing, Paris, Chapter 5. 

Household Consumption, p.104. 
13 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Framework Comparison

Item

Consumption Exp or 

Final Consump. 

(OECD /PCE) 

Proposed BLS 

Consumption

Planned

Research

Acquisition cost of services and non-durable goods Yes Yes n/a

Financial services Yes Yes n/a

Service flow from housing Yes Yes n/a

Service flow from vehicles * Yes/No Yes Yes

Service flow from other durable goods * Yes/No Yes No

In-kind receipt of goods and services ** Yes/Partial Yes Yes

Other home production * Yes/No Yes Yes

Interhousehold transfers (including gifts received) * Yes/No Yes Yes

Health*** Yes Partial Yes

Education Yes ?? n/a

* Yes/no: in OECD, not PCE

** For renters living in housing units that are subsidized (e.g., rent-control, section 8, public housing), PCE includes the rent paid, not flow of services 

*** Restricted to health insurance for BLS consumption
14 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Framework Comparison

** No/Yes: Not OECD but in PCE

Item

Consumption Exp 

or Final Consump. 

(OECD /PCE) 

Proposed BLS 

Consumption

Planned 

Research

Gifts of goods & services given outside household Yes No No

Life insurance/other personal insurance Yes No No

Purchase price of vehicles ** No/Yes No No

Purchase price of other durables ** No/Yes No No
15 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Topic 2a

Distribution of PCE over Households

Researchers: S. Curtin, T. Garner, B. Martin, and B. Matsumoto
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Overview of Research

 Goal: to estimate distribution of BEA’s Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) by 

combining data from the PCE and BLS’s Consumer Expenditure (CE) Survey

 Work being done in coordination with BEA

 Part of a larger project organized by the OECD

 Similar to BEA’s Distribution of Personal Income product (Fixler, Gindelsky, and Johnson)

 Consumer expenditures organized into PCE “Major Type of Product”

 Series presented in NIPA Table 2.3.5

 Excludes final consumption expenditures of non-profits serving households

 Prototype focuses on data for calendar year 2019

 Preliminary results

 9.0% of equivalized PCE accounted for by the bottom 20% of population; 37.0% of PCE accounted 

for by the top quintile (80-100%)

 Gini: 0.28
17 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Method to Produce PCE-defined Consumption Expenditures

 Time period for CE Interview: November 2018 – February 2020 (collection: 2019Q1-2020Q1)

 Sample

 Restrict to CUs with 2, 3 or 4 interviews

 Recalibrate sampling weights to match 2019 counts and average demographic characteristics from CPS 

 Use Interview as base (represents ~ 95% of total expenditures)

 Apply statistical matching to impute the remaining 5% from the Diary using procedure 

based on Hobijn et al. (2009) 

 CE expenditures mapped to PCE categories (w/adjustments and imputations)

 Mapping based on product and definitions (e.g., no household-to-household vehicle sales)

 Supplement CU reported out-of-pocket healthcare (including insurance) expenditures using 

– Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) National Health Expenditure (NHE) 

– Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-IC) from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
18 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

CE/PCE Ratios After All Adjustments to CU Expenditures, 

but before “Scaling up” to PCE Totals

Preliminary Estimates 2019

CE/PCE 

research

CE/PCE 

published

CE/PCE 

published 

“comparables”

PCE less final Cons. Exp. of NPISHs 0.73 0.60 0.73

Durable goods 0.56 0.59 0.65

Nondurable goods 0.63 0.52 0.53

Services 0.78 0.63 0.87

Source for published CE/PCE: https://stats.bls.gov/cex/cecomparison/pce_profile.htm
19 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Method to “CE Scaled-up to PCE” and Produce Distributions

 CE-sourced, PCE-defined expenditures scaled up so that major product totals match 

published PCE estimates; scaling based on CU share of total CE expenditures, e.g., 

 2019 PCE for Healthcare = $2,450,839 million

 CU “X” had 0.000005% of total PCE-defined CE healthcare spending

 CU “X” assigned 0.000005%*$2,450,839 million (PCE healthcare total $) as CU “X’s” expenditure

 Apply equivalence scale, square root of CU size, to produce distributional statistics

 Rank consumer units by equivalized “CE scaled-up to PCE” population weighted (by 

number of consumer units and members within), referred to a “Equivalized PCE”
20 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

CE /PCE Ratios with Adjustments & Shares of Households 

with Medicare and Medicaid Recipients within Deciles

Preliminary Estimates 2019

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Share of CUs

Decile of Population based on Rank of Eq. PCE

Medicare Medicaid CE to PCE Ratios

PCE_Title

Diary 

imputed to 

Interview

+ Split CE 

OOP health 

ins premium

+ With 

imputations 

for benefits

Pharm. and other 

medical goods 0.16 0.27 0.68

Health care ser. 0.05 0.20 0.80

health insurance 

prem (net for 

split)

1.85 0.19 0.79

NOTE: ranking of eq. PCE expenditures after scaling uo
21 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

0-20%

9%

20-40%

14%

40-60%

17%

60-80%

23%

80-99%

33%

Top 1%

4%

Shares of “Equivalized PCE” by Distribution of Population 

Preliminary Estimates 2019

For example...

33% of Equivalized PCE accounted for by 

the population within 80-99th CE-PCE 

exp. percentile range

NOTE: Shares and rank percentiles based on CExp

Scaled up to PCE, referred to a “Equivalized PCE”
22 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

4.3% 5.8% 7.8% 10.7% 15.5%

29.6% 26.3% 24.1% 21.6% 15.9%

19.7% 18.3% 18.8% 18.7% 19.3%

24.6% 24.6% 20.7% 17.3% 12.0%

21.8% 25.0% 28.6% 31.7% 37.2%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

0-20% 20-40% 40-60% 60-80% 80-100%

Distribution of Eq. CE-PCE within Decile

Quintile of Population based on Rank of Eq. PCE

Other Services

Health Care

Housing (incl. utilities)

Non-Durable Goods

Durable Goods

Composition of “Equivalized PCE” by Quintile

Preliminary Estimates 2019

For example...

24.6% of PCE,

accounted for by 

households in the 

bottom quintile, is 

for Health Care
23 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Topic 2b

BLS Initiative to Produce a Comprehensive Consumption 

Measure 

Researchers: S. Curtin, T. Garner, B. Matsumoto, and J. Schild 
24 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Consumption as a Well-being Outcome: A Function of 

Resources and Processes

For other outcomes: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

Processes

Skills (e.g., education, 

financial management, 

efficiency in converting 

inputs to outcomes)

Degree of resource 

allocation (power)

Circumstances (CU 

composition, disability)

Preferences, subjective 

assessments of wellbeing

Available Resources

Income, in-kind 

transfers

Asset (financial)

Asset (nonfinancial)

Debt (access and 

use)

Time

Outcomes (e.g.,)

1. Consumption

2. Health status

3. Material deprivation

4. Life satisfaction

5. Happiness
25 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

BLS Initiative to Produce a Comprehensive Measure of 

Consumption

 Measure being designed to reflect how consumer units (CUs) use resources (e.g., 

income, wealth, time, in-kind benefits) to meet their consumption/material “needs

 Motivation

 BLS long term interest to produce consumption measure & CE data users

 Period of COVID-19 with more goods and services produced by household members

 BLS is the producer of CE and ATUS data

 ITWG on Evaluating Poverty Measures

 Commissioner Beach’s support

 Goal

 Produce components at the micro level that can be used by researchers to produce his/her preferred 

consumption or consumption expenditure measure definition depending on purpose

 Publish tables

 Disseminate public use microdata
26 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Overview of Research Presented Today

 Time period: January 2019-February 2020 (collection: 2019Q2-2020Q1)

 Sample: all consumer units participating in an Interview with 3-month recall for expenditures and 12 for income

 Measures: consumption & consumption expenditures for 3-months; 12-month after tax and transfer (TT) income 

divided by 4

 Method to produce distributions

 Apply 3-parameter equivalence scale (same as for Supplemental Poverty Measure)

 Rank consumer units by equivalized values population weighted (by number of consumer units and members 

within)

 Shares and rank percentiles based on equivalized values

 Preliminary results for 2019

 9.0% of equivalized consumption accounted for by the bottom 20% of population; 39.0% of equivalized 

consumption accounted for by the top quintile 

 5.0% of equivalized after tax and transfer income accounted for by bottom 20% of population; 46% accounted 

for by the top quintile

 Gini for equivalized consumption: 0.30

 Gini for equivalized after tax and transfer income: 0.40
27 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Comprehensive Measure of Consumption

Item Current Planned

Research

Acquisition cost of services and non-durable goods Yes n/a

Service flow from housing Yes n/a

Service flow from cars and trucks Yes Yes

In-kind receipt of goods and services (currently only: NSLP, LIHEAP, WIC, rental 

assistance) Yes Yes

Gifts of goods & services given outside household* Yes Yes

Other home production ** No Yes

Interhousehold transfers (including gifts received) No Yes

Health*** No Yes

Education No ??

* Future: subtract for within household consumption

** Contract with outside vendor to estimate

***Restricted to health insurance
28 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Construction of Comparison Measures

Measure Base Not Included Addition

Consumption 

Expenditures

CE Publication Definition 

of Total Expenditures

Cash contributions; allocations to and purchases 

of life insurance, endowments, annuities, and 

other personal insurance; retirement, pensions, 

and Social Security

After Tax and 

Transfer Income

CE Defined After Tax 

Income

LIHEAP, NSLP, WIC, 

rental assistance inkind transfers
29 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Shares of Equivalized Consumption & Equivalized After TT 

Income by Quintile

Preliminary Estimates 2019

0-20%

5% 20-40%

11%

40-60%

16%

60-80%

22%

80-100%

46%

0-20% After TT Income

9%

20-40%

13%

40-60%

17%

60-80%

22%

80-100%

39%

Consumption

NOTE: Quintiles based on rank of population by equivalized consumption or after tax and transfer income
30 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Housing (including Utilities) as Share of Total 

Consumption by Quintile

Preliminary Estimates 2019

48.0% 49.1% 49.5% 49.0% 46.8%

52.0% 50.9% 50.5% 51.0% 53.2%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

0-20% 20-40% 40-60% 60-80% 80-100%

By After TT Income Quintile

50.8% 50.3% 49.5% 48.5% 46.3%

49.2% 49.7% 50.5% 51.5% 53.7%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

0-20% 20-40% 40-60% 60-80% 80-100%

By Consumption Quintile

Housing

Other
31 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Joint Distribution of Consumption & After TT Income

Preliminary Estimates 2019

Rank by Eq. 

Income

Rank by Eq. Consumption

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 38% 17% 12% 7% 6% 5% 4% 4% 3% 3%

2 26% 22% 16% 11% 8% 5% 4% 3% 2% 2%

3 16% 21% 18% 13% 11% 8% 5% 4% 2% 2%

4 11% 15% 15% 16% 13% 11% 8% 6% 3% 2%

5 5% 10% 14% 17% 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 3%

6 3% 9% 11% 15% 14% 14% 13% 10% 7% 4%

7 1% 3% 7% 10% 13% 17% 16% 16% 10% 5%

8 1% 2% 4% 6% 11% 15% 18% 17% 17% 9%

9 0% 0% 2% 3% 6% 9% 14% 20% 24% 20%

10 0% 0% 1% 1% 2% 4% 6% 12% 25% 48%
32 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Joint Distribution of Consumption & Consumption Exp.

Preliminary Estimates 2019

Rank by Eq. 

Consumption 

Exp.

Rank by Eq. Consumption

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 70% 18% 6% 3% 1% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0%

2 21% 41% 19% 9% 5% 3% 1% 1% 0% 0%

3 4% 24% 33% 18% 10% 6% 3% 2% 1% 0%

4 1% 9% 21% 31% 18% 9% 6% 3% 1% 0%

5 1% 3% 9% 19% 29% 19% 10% 6% 3% 1%

6 0% 1% 6% 11% 19% 26% 19% 12% 4% 1%

7 1% 1% 2% 5% 8% 18% 29% 24% 9% 3%

8 0% 1% 1% 2% 5% 8% 18% 30% 27% 8%

9 1% 1% 2% 2% 3% 5% 7% 15% 37% 27%

10 0% 1% 1% 2% 2% 4% 6% 9% 17% 60%
33 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Summary

 Research continues to support data quality improvements in CE

 Research continues regarding distributional PCE

 Refinements to CE allocations and adjustments

 Update to more recent time periods

 Research continues regarding the development a comprehensive measure of 

consumption

 Accounting for health insurance

 Accounting for home production

 Decomposition in inequality and poverty by demographic groups (e.g., education, race)

 Combine research on PCE and CE comprehensive consumption to move closer to 

OECD definitions of “consumption expenditures” and “final consumption”

 Joint distribution of consumption, income, and net worth

 Progress posted on https://www.bls.gov/cex/consumption-home.htm
34 — U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS • bls.gov

Contact

Thesia I. Garner1 and Adam Safir2

1Chief Researcher, Division of Price and Index Number Research (DPINR)

2Chief, Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE)

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Washington, DC 20212

Garner.Thesia@BLS.gov

Safir.Adam@BLS.gov