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Local Area Unemployment Statistics
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Important Information
Annual Revisions
Each year, historical estimates from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program are revised to reflect new population controls from the Census Bureau, updated input data, and re-estimation. The data for model-based areas also incorporate new seasonal adjustment, and the unadjusted estimates are controlled to new census division and U.S. totals. Substate area data subsequently are revised to incorporate updated inputs, re-estimation, and controlling to new statewide totals.
Model-Based Areas
On April 8, 2026, in conjunction with the January 2026 State Employment and Unemployment news release, the LAUS program will issue revised civilian labor force and unemployment estimates for census regions and divisions; all states and the District of Columbia; the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA Metropolitan Division; the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL Metropolitan Division; the Chicago-Naperville-Schaumburg, IL Metropolitan Division; the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area; New York city, NY; the Cleveland, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area; and the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area, as well as the seven corresponding balance-of-state areas. As described above, the data will incorporate new population controls, updated inputs, re-estimation of models, and adjustment to new census division and national control totals. Both not-seasonally-adjusted and smoothed-seasonally-adjusted (SSA) monthly data for these areas will be revised from January 2021 forward. The population controls will reflect replacement of the "blended base" method that had been in use since the start of post-censal estimation for the 2020s with data adapted from the 2020 Modified Age and Race Census, or MARC, file.
Due to the 2025 lapse in federal appropriations, October 2025 data collection did not occur for the Current Population Survey (CPS), which provides the primary inputs to LAUS estimation. At the same time as the January 2026 data and the revisions for states through 2025 are released, statewide averages for 2025 based on the 11 months for which CPS data collection occurred will be published in the BLS time-series database. These 11-month averages will not be strictly comparable to annual averages for prior years.
Eleven-month average and historical supplemental items on the LAUS program website containing data for model-based areas, including data files, rank tables, and maps, will be updated on April 8 to reflect these revisions.
Statewide data for Puerto Rico (which are not model-based, but rather are tabulated from a household survey similar to the Current Population Survey for the U.S.) will be revised for 2024 forward. The not-seasonally-adjusted data will reflect the incorporation of new population controls beginning with January 2024, while the SSA data also will reflect re-seasonal adjustment and re-smoothing. Data collection from Puerto Rico’s household survey was not affected by the 2025 federal government shutdown. Hence, the 2025 annual averages for the Commonwealth will be calculated based on the 12 underlying months of the year and fully comparable to annual averages for prior years.
Substate Areas
On May 19, 2026, routine revisions will be made to data from 2016 through 2025 for geographic areas below the state level (other than the model-based areas noted above), and 11-month averages for 2025 will be issued. For all of these areas, some estimation inputs will be revised back to 2016. Revisions from 2021 forward will also reflect controlling to the new state totals described above. Estimates for all non-modeled areas will be footnoted as having been subject to revision from January 2016 forward within the time-series database on May 19.
Last Modified Date: March 6, 2026