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Wage Records Program
Bureau of Labor Statistics > Wage Records > About > Questions & Answers

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

  1. What is the Wage Records Program?▸
    • The Wage Records Program is a collaborative effort between the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and multiple state Labor Market Information (LMI) agencies. State governments use wage records—that is, administrative data about workers’ wages that employers are required by law to report—to manage their unemployment insurance (UI) benefits programs. Through the Wage Records Program, BLS and its state partners are leveraging these administrative data to improve existing economic indicators, develop new tools for analysis, and build a better understanding of the dynamic labor market. The Wage Records Program compiles state wage record data to form a multi-state, longitudinally linked data set that supports intrastate, interstate, and regional analyses.
  2. What is administrative data? ▸
    • Administrative data is information collected for nonstatistical reasons, such as health or tax records, or as a byproduct of administering government programs. Many administrative data sets can be used as a cost-effective foundation for statistical products.
  3. What are wage records?▸
    • Wage records are reports that virtually all employers are required to file, on a quarterly basis, to their state UI agencies. These administrative data—which list the wages each employee received in the quarter—are used to assess both liability for unemployment taxes and eligibility for unemployment benefits. Some wage records—referred to as enhanced wage records—contain additional information, such as occupation and hours worked. While wage records are primarily used to administer the UI programs, they are a rich source of labor market data and can be used to produce valuable labor market statistics at the state and local level without creating additional reporting burden for employers or workers.
  4. Why is BLS using administrative data in addition to its surveys?▸
    • BLS has long used administrative data through its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program, which publishes detailed statistics by industry, state, county, and metropolitan area. Over the years, BLS has consistently sought to better use these data, expanding the number of published estimates, improving timeliness and frequency of publication, and developing new data products.
    • As a leader in the statistical community, BLS actively explores new ways to produce labor market statistics for its stakeholders. Advances in computing technology have allowed additional administrative datasets to be used to produce economic statistics, maximizing their utility without increasing respondent burden. In addition, because administrative datasets are often very large, they can be used to produce economic statistics at a detailed geographic level, information that is critical to state and local governments.
    • Also, many BLS programs use administrative data as a sample frame or as an input. BLS is researching how administrative data could lead to improvements—in terms of both data quality and efficiency—in existing BLS surveys and programs.
  5. When did the BLS Wage Records Program start?▸
    • Building the BLS Wage Records Program has been a multi-year initiative. The Wage Records Program began as a pilot in 2016 in cooperation with 6 states.
  6. How are data from the Wage Records Program used?▸
    • BLS and its state partners use wage record data to conduct innovative research projects. State LMI agencies are required by law to evaluate their workforce programs to promote continuous improvement, research and test innovative services and strategies, and achieve high levels of performance. The Wage Records Program gives state LMI agencies a valuable tool to conduct analyses that include nearby state. In addition, BLS is using wage records to research ways to improve its existing surveys and other programs. The Wage Records Program research page lists some of the BLS and state research that has been conducted using wage record data.
  7. How does BLS protect wage record data?▸
    • In order to maintain credibility and trust, confidentiality protections for BLS data are essential. The BLS Wage Records Program architecture ensures that all data reside in a secure environment. Any data accessed by partnering state LMI agencies is encrypted, and individual wage records are anonymized.
    • In addition, the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA) (44 U.S.C. 3561 et seq.) states that information acquired by BLS for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality must be used by BLS employees and agents for statistical purposes only. CIPSEA further states that any BLS employee or agent who knowingly and willfully discloses identifiable respondent information to someone not authorized to receive it, is subject to imprisonment for not more than 5 years or fines of not more than $250,000, or both.