Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics

Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics
Name	Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics
Country	United States
Agency	United States Census Bureau
Started	1990s
Frequency	Quarterly
Coverage	National

Contents

Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics is a longitudinal data program produced by the United States Census Bureau that links establishment and employment records to provide detailed statistics on job flows, wages, and worker geography. The program supports research for policymakers, analysts, and scholars at institutions such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Brookings Institution, National Bureau of Economic Research, and Urban Institute, informing debates in forums including the United States Congress, Federal Reserve System, World Bank, and OECD.

Overview

The program produces measures that connect administrative records from sources like state Unemployment Insurance systems, federal filings used by the Internal Revenue Service, and survey frames employed by the American Community Survey and Decennial Census. Outputs include geocoded flows between places such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago (Illinois), Houston (Texas), and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), enabling comparisons among metropolitan areas like San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and Atlanta (Georgia). Users range from researchers at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University to planners at municipal agencies in San Diego and Phoenix (Arizona).

LEHD integrates administrative files including employer tax records filed with the Internal Revenue Service, state Unemployment Insurance wage records, and employer reports used by the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The infrastructure relies on secure matching protocols influenced by practices at the National Institutes of Health and Social Security Administration for deidentification and linkage. Geocoding methods reference standards used by the United States Geological Survey and drawing on address databases maintained by the United States Postal Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for spatial accuracy. Collaborations involve academic partners like University of Michigan, University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University for validation studies.

Key outputs include job creation and destruction rates modeled in frameworks used by scholars at the National Bureau of Economic Research and in studies published via American Economic Review and Quarterly Journal of Economics. Metrics include worker origin–destination flows comparable to commute statistics from the American Community Survey, wage distribution series cited in work by Alan Greenspan-era analyses at the Federal Reserve Board, and establishment-level measures used in research at Columbia University and Yale University. Aggregations support comparisons across jurisdictions governed by entities such as state governments of California, Texas, Florida, and New York (state) and metropolitan planning organizations in regions like Denver (Colorado), Minneapolis (Minnesota), and Detroit (Michigan).

LEHD data inform studies in labor markets and urban studies at institutions including Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, University of Chicago’s urban labs, and think tanks like the Economic Policy Institute. Policymakers in the United States Congress and agencies such as the Department of Labor and Department of Commerce use outputs for workforce development, commuting analyses for transit agencies like Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York) and Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and economic impact assessments referenced by the Council of Economic Advisers. International organizations including the International Labour Organization and OECD consult LEHD-style indicators for cross-national labor studies alongside projects at the World Bank.

Limitations stem from administrative coverage and the absence of direct survey variables used by studies at Pew Research Center and RAND Corporation; representativeness can vary across states such as Alaska and Wyoming where employment patterns differ. Privacy frameworks draw on protocols from the National Institutes of Health and legal guidance referencing acts like the Privacy Act of 1974 and procedures observed by the Social Security Administration. Suppression and noise-injection methods resemble approaches used in confidentiality protection at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for public-use datasets.

Origins trace to methodological work in the 1990s involving collaborations among the United States Census Bureau, state labor agencies, and academic centers like the Cornell University Labor Relations Research Center. Projects and pilot programs referenced frameworks used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Science Foundation for data infrastructure. Subsequent enhancements paralleled advances at institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University in record linkage, at University of California, Los Angeles in geocoding, and in policy uptake by entities like the Legislative Analyst's Office (California) and the Office of Management and Budget.

Category:United States Census Bureau Category:Labor economics Category:Data infrastructure