Consumer Expenditure Surveys

Publications
This Year and Beyond
Brett Creech
Section Chief, Branch of Information and Analysis
BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys Division
Presentation to National Press Foundation
December 9, 2019

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 Recent past, present, and future for
CE Publications

 What’s happened in 2019

 What’s also coming in 2020 and beyond

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 What is the CE
 The CE is the face of America: who we are, and
what our economic lives are like. The CE provides
the information to tell the stories of U.S. household
spending across all ages, locations, and
backgrounds.

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 What does the CE Branch of
Information and Analysis do?
We tell the stories to answer these questions --what
are people’s economic lives like today, and how do they
compare over time?

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 Goals of the CE

 The CE has two critical goals:

Providing information to the public and other

federal agencies.

Provide the basis for revising the expenditure

weights for the CPI-U and CPI-W every two years.
Monthly CE data are used to update the chained
CPI-U every month.
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 Recently

 Annual CE tables: In September we published

expenditure tables and public-use microdata
for all of 2018.

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 New with the 2018 tables:
Census Divisions

 More detailed geographic Census Divisions, in

addition to Census Regions, using 2017 and
2018 data

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 New for 2018: Higher Income Tables

 New published tables with higher incomes:

For example: Size by Income, 2 Person
household
-Income range maximum of $70,000 and above replaced with
-Income range of $70,000 to $99,999
-$100,000 to $149,999
-$150,000 and more

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 Monthly Labor Review Article
 Not fun for young and old alike: how the
youngest and oldest consumers have fared in
recession and recovery, MLR article published
in June.

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 Beyond the Numbers Article

 How people in California, Florida, New Jersey,

Texas, and New York spend their money: New
CE state weights data for 2017, published in
September.

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 Coming up in early 2020

 The 2018 CE Annual Report which summarizes

major trends of the last year. This report
discusses the trends and provides tables of
average expenditures, income, and
demographics.

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 Coming up in April 2020

 The CE Midyear News Release and Tables from

July 2018 through June 2019.

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 Also coming in 2020 and after

 New generational categories,

including those born after
1996
 This will split up the
Millennials into 1981-1996,
and the new Generation Z,
born 1997+
 Estimated publication date: September 2020

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 New Veterans Status

 In addition to asking if anyone in the household is

currently in the US military,
 The CE added a new question asking
if anyone had served previously
 Started in July 2018 in the
Interview survey, and January 2019
for the Diary
 Will be in a new table when we
have enough data (2020 or 2021)

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 Contact Information
Brett Creech
Creech.Brett@bls.gov
CELEBRATING 131 YEARS of CE!

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