CE Experimental Research Products

This page provides an introduction to special tabulation tables and other experimental products being developed by the Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys. New research products will be added and updated periodically.

Information on this page includes information on how to get the most from CE Tables, the state weight files, the All Consumer Unit Prepublication Means, Variances, Percent Reporting Tables (All CU Prepublication MVP), new Census Division and Census Region Variance Tables, cross-tabulated tables with higher incomes, Generational tables that sort expenditures by generation/cohorts, and the 2014 Higher Income table which expanded the top income range to $200,000 and over.

Note that the 2014 through mid-2016 Generational tables were research work, and had not been produced using BLS production methods and standards. Starting with 2016 data, the Generational tables are now included in the annual expenditure tables.

How to get the most from CE tables

This document provides information to help one delve deeper into the published as well as the very detailed non-published (prepublication) tables. This short article describes how one can use consumer unit characteristics to uncover useful underlying information about the data.

State Weight Files

Guidance to the user: Care should be taken when analyzing Public-Use Microdata using the State Weights, as the small number of households for some expenditures can cause the mean dollar estimate to be imprecise. The more aggregated summary variables will produce more precise estimates. Additionally, it should be noted that these weights are only for their respective states and cannot be used to make inferences about any other geographic areas. Similarly, the national weight is unable to provide state level estimates. The provided data must be used in conjunction with the Public-Use Microdata to obtain state level estimates.

The State Weights initiative by CE is an effort to produce experimental microdata products that can allow users to explore consumer expenditure data at the state level, a feature previously unavailable in the data. We intend to explore the viability of the CE sample to support weight creation for as many states as possible. The first available states are California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Texas. If others become available, they will be added to this page for download and use.

Documentation

An Overview of the State-Level Weighting Procedure provides information to the user on how the weights are created and how they differ from the national weight included in the PUMD.

Using the State Weights on the PUMD provides a detailed description of the variables included in the files along with tables of descriptive information about the data such as computation targets and population totals.

California

Years available: 2016-2017

State weight files: (XLSX) (STATA) (SAS)

Sample code: (STATA) (R)

Florida

Years available: 2016-2017

State weight files: (XLSX) (STATA) (SAS)

Sample code: (STATA) (R)

New Jersey

Years available: 2016-2017

State weight files: (XLSX) (STATA) (SAS)

Sample code: (STATA) (R)

New York

Year available: 2017

State weight files: (XLSX) (STATA) (SAS)

Sample code: (STATA) (R)

Texas

Year available: 2017

State weight files: (XLSX) (STATA) (SAS)

Sample code: (STATA) (R)

All CU Prepublication Means, Variances, and Percent reporting (MVP) Tables

All consumer units: Annual detailed expenditure means, standard errors, coefficients of variation, and weekly (D) or quarterly (I) percents reporting, Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2013-18

Guidance to the user: Care should be taken when analyzing detailed expenditure subcategories in the prepublication tables, as the small number of households reporting an expenditure can cause the mean dollar estimate to be imprecise. Users should consider the coefficient of variation (CV). Expenditures with CVs of 25 percent and over are generally considered unreliable. For further information on standard error and variance in the CE, see Standard Errors in the 2016 Consumer Expenditure Survey.

This table was developed to show the large amount of additional detailed expenditure data calculated by the CE. The table contains Means, Variances, and Percent reporting (MVP). The CE standard published tables are an aggregate of the integrated data, and contain only higher level summary rows. This Prepublication table contains data pulled from three different tables. The three underlying tables summarized in this table can be obtained by contacting us.

Available Prepublication tables in this disaggregated format are based on the same set of sixteen published annual tables on our tables page. Displaying the disaggregated rows at the lowest level allows for the addition of either weekly or quarterly percent reporting statistics. Furthermore, one can calculate the weekly or quarterly means expenditure for only those who pay for particular items. The three types of tables are available upon request for the same demographics as our published tables and contain the following information.

Integrated tables which contain selected data from both the Interview and Diary surveys. These integrated tables present the weekly and quarterly reported expenditures in an annual mean format that matches published tables, but in a detailed disaggregated form. The tables also include standard errors, and coefficients of variation. These contain the most detailed set of expenditures calculated by the CE.

Interview Survey tables containing only Interview data on quarterly expenditures. The table includes annual expenditure means, quarterly percent reporting and variances. For example, one can use this table to find out what percentage of consumer units reported paying Mortgage interest in a quarter and how much they spent on average.

Diary Survey tables contain weekly expenditure mean and percent reporting. As an example, one can use this table to find out what percentage of consumer units bought Bacon or Eggs in a week and how much they spent on average.

The MVP tables displaying these data can be viewed in pdf or xlsx formats.

ALL CU MVP table 2018 (PDF) (XLSX)

ALL CU MVP table 2017 (PDF) (XLSX)

ALL CU MVP table 2016 (PDF) (XLSX)

ALL CU MVP table 2015 (PDF) (XLSX)

ALL CU MVP table 2014 (PDF) (XLSX)

ALL CU MVP table 2013 (PDF) (XLSX)