Current Population Survey

The BLS uses the data to publish reports early each month called the Employment Situation.

Annual estimates include employment and unemployment in large metropolitan areas.

The survey asks about the employment status of each member of the household 15 years of age or older as of a particular calendar week.

[4] Based on responses to questions on work and job search activities, each person 16 years and over in a sample household is classified as employed, unemployed, or not in the labor force.

People are also counted as employed if they were temporarily absent from their jobs because of illness, bad weather, vacation, labor-management disputes, or personal reasons.

Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job (e.g. they believe that no work was available).

These data are the source of the annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage.

Other regular or occasional survey supplement topics, in various months and years, have included after-tax money income, benefits that are not cash, displaced workers, job tenure, occupational mobility, temporary and contingent work, adult education, volunteering, tobacco use, food availability, fertility, and information about veterans.