Consumer Expenditure Survey
Welcome to the step-by-step guide on how to use the Consumer Expenditure Survey one-screen query system
The Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) program provides data on expenditures, income, and demographic characteristics of consumers in the United States. The annual data allow data users to relate the expenditures and income of consumers to the characteristics of those consumers.
This tool lets users query the BLS databases for specific data series. For each survey and program, make a selection for each characteristic in the order listed. As you make your selection, the remaining characteristics will filter to show only choices where data are available. After choosing the series, click on "Add to selection." If you need more data series, repeat the steps of choosing the data series you need. After you've finished finding the data series you need, click on the "Get Data" button to retrieve the data, and an HTML table with data for the most recent 10 years will display. If you desire a different time period of format, you may modify the options on the data display page, or click on the "More Formatting Options" button for additional options on refining the data retrieval results. Note: Users may not retrieve more than 200 data series in one query.
Type all or part of a search string in the search text box. The contents of the box will filter to show only those options that contain the search string.
Click on the Category of interest to select, such as Expenditures.
Type all or part of a search string in the search text box. The contents of the box will filter to show only those options that contain the search string.
Click on a Subcategory of interest. If expenditures was selected for Category then Subcategories of expenditures will appear in the selections.
Type all or part of a search string in the search text box. The contents of the box will filter to show only those options that contain the search string.
Click on the item of interest to select.
To select multiple options, hold the Ctrl/Command button, and click the desired options.
Type all or part of a search string in the search text box. The contents of the box will filter to show only those options that contain the search string.
Click on the Demographic of interest to select.
To select multiple options, hold the Ctrl/Command button, and click the desired options. The Consumer Expenditure Survey collects data by socioeconomic and demographic characteristic. Twelve standard Demographics are published. They include quintiles of income, income before taxes, age of reference person, size of consumer unit, composition of consumer unit, number of earners in consumer unit, housing tenure, race of reference person, type of area, region of residence, occupation of reference person, and origin of reference person.
Type all or part of a search string in the search text box. The contents of the box will filter to show only those options that contain the search string.
Click on each Characteristic of interest in order to add to the selection list. Different data Characteristics are available for different Demographic selections.
To select multiple options, hold the Ctrl/Command button, and click the desired options.
You must make a selection for each of the characteristics in the order listed. Once you have selected all of the characteristics, the "Add to selection" button becomes active. Click the "Add to selection" button to list the selected data series in the "Your selection" box. You can return to the characteristic boxes and make new selections to request additional data series. Click the "Get Data" button to retrieve all the selected data series.
You must make a selection for each of the characteristics in the order listed. Once you have selected all of the characteristics, the "Get Data" button becomes active. Click to retrieve the data.
Last Modified Date: February 20, 2018
United States Department of Labor
