State of Working X
Data Library

Sources

Jobs:

EPI analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment Statistics data.

Wages:

EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata. Real wages calculated using Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index data.

Labor Force:

EPI analysis of Current Population Survey microdata.

Unionization:

EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata.

Poverty:

CPS poverty rates: EPI analysis of EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplements Table 8, Number of Poor and Poverty Rate by State.

ACS poverty rates: EPI analysis of American Community Survey (Poverty Status in the Past 12 Months) data.

Share of workers earning below the poverty wage: Economic Policy Institute analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata.

Income:

Median Family Income: EPI analysis of American Community Survey (Median Family Income in the Past 12 Months-Median four-person family income) data.

Median household income: EPI analysis of American Community Survey (Median Income in the Past 12 Months) data. EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplements Table H-8, Median Household Income by State.

Health Insurance:

Pre-2013: EPI analysis of Census Bureau Health Insurance Historical Tables.

2013-present: EPI analysis of American Community Survey Health Insurance Coverage Status data.

Unemployment insurance:

EPI analysis of Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration Unemployment Insurance Data Base data.

Demographics

Data represent people ages 16 and older unless otherwise noted.

Race/Ethnicity

Race/ethnicity categories are mutually exclusive.

Black

Black non-Hispanic

White

White non-Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic any race

Education

Educational categories are mutually exclusive and represent the highest education level attained for all individuals ages 16 and older.

Less than high school

No high school diploma or equivalent.

High school

Earned a high school diploma or equivalent, such as the General Education Development (GED) credential.

Some college

Earned a high school diploma or equivalent and completed one or more postsecondary courses but earned less than a four-year bachelor’s degree.

Bachelor’s degree

Earned a bachelor’s degree.

Advanced degree

Earned a master’s, doctoral, or professional degree.

Wages

Hourly wages from the CPS ORG are the wages of a population subsample that includes all wage and salary workers with valid wage and hour data, whether paid weekly or by the hour. In order to be included in our subsample, respondents had to meet the following criteria:

• ages 16 and older
• employed in the public or private sector (self-employed were excluded)
• hours worked were within the valid range in the survey (1–99 per week, or hours vary—see discussion below)
• had either hourly or weekly wages within the valid survey range

For those who met these criteria, an hourly wage was calculated in the following manner: If a valid hourly wage was reported, that wage was used throughout our analysis. For salaried workers (those who report only a weekly wage), the hourly wage was their weekly wage divided by their hours worked. For more information on our hourly wage methodology (including our method of smoothing clumps in the wage distribution), see methodology.

Annual wages and work hours data from the CPS ASEC include all wage and salary workers ages 18–64. Self-employed workers are excluded from the sample.

Benefits and compensation

Health insurance and pension coverage.

Due to a survey redesign, health insurance data from 2013 and onward are not comparable with data prior to 2013.

Health insurance and pension coverage data are for private-sector wage and salary workers ages 18–64 who worked at least 20 hours per week and 26 weeks per year. This sample is chosen to focus on those with regular employment. Coverage is defined as workers who received health insurance from their own job for which their employer paid for at least some of the coverage.

State Data

The definition of part time in state data differs slightly from that used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS only looks at workers who say they “usually” work part time, whereas this data set includes anyone who worked less than 35 hours in the reference week. Additionally, the data presented here may differ slightly from the BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics database, which contains model-driven estimates of state and local employment that reflect additional factors such as unemployment insurance statistics.

Glossery of terms

Civilian noninstitutional population

The civilian noninstitutional population consists of people 16 years old and older residing in the 50 states and the District of Columbia who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces or living in institutions (such as correctional facilities or nursing homes).

Employed

Persons 16 years and over in the civilian noninstitutional population who, during the reference week, (a) did any work at all (at least 1 hour) as paid employees, worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of the family, and (b) all those who were not working but who had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent because of vacation, illness, bad weather, childcare problems, maternity or paternity leave, labor-management dispute, job training, or other family or personal reasons, whether or not they were paid for the time off or were seeking other jobs. Each employed person is counted only once, even if he or she holds more than one job. Excluded are persons whose only activity consisted of work around their own house (painting, repairing, or own home housework) or volunteer work for religious, charitable, and other organizations.

Employment-to-population ratio

The proportion of the population that is employed (a more comprehensive indicator than the unemployment rate).

Full-time workers

Persons who were employed for 35 or more hours during the reference week.

Labor force

People 16 years old and older residing in the 50 states and the District of Columbia who either have a job or are actively looking for a job, and are not on active duty in the Armed Forces or living in institutions (such as correctional facilities or nursing homes).

Long-term unemployment

Percentage of workers who have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks.

Net productivity

The growth of output of goods and services minus depreciation per hour worked.

Part-time workers

Persons who were employed fewer than 35 hours in the reference week.

Poverty-level wages

The hourly wage that a full-time, year-round worker must earn to sustain a family of four with two children at the official poverty threshold (from the Census Bureau).

Production and nonsupervisory workers

Workers who are not owners and do not primarily supervise the work of others (following the BLS definition by industry). Production and nonsupervisory workers typically account for about 82 percent of private-sector payroll employment.

Underemployment

includes three categories of workers:

• Unemployed
• Part-time for economic reasons: Persons who want and are available for full-time work but worked less than 35 hours because of unfavorable business conditions, seasonal declines in demand, or because full-time work was not available
• Marginally attached: workers who want to participate in the labor force but are unable to because of some barrier. This category includes workers who are discouraged, or have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months but stopped looking because they believe the type of work is no longer available; conditionally interested, or unable to work because of some other barrier to employment such as child care or transportation.

Unemployment rate

The share of jobless people in the labor force who have actively sought work in the past four weeks (the most common measure of the strength of the job market).

Wage and salary workers

Workers who receive wages, salaries, commissions, tips, payment in kind, or piece rates, excluding self-employed workers.

Wage deciles/percentiles

Wage deciles divide full-time workers into 10 groups of equal size. The first decile dollar value represents the upper earnings limit of the lowest-earning 10 percent of workers, the second decile dollar value is the upper earnings limit of the lowest-earning 20 percent of workers, and so forth. For example, 10 percent of workers earn less than the upper limit of the first decile, while 90 percent of workers earn more than that value. The fifth decile is the median, or the midpoint in the earnings distribution, with half of workers earning above the median and the other half earning below the median.