Harmonized Population and Labor Force Statistics

Abstract

The official labor force statistics often exhibit discontinuities in January, when updated population estimates are incorporated into the Current Population Survey (CPS) for the current year but are not revised backwards through history. We construct harmonized population estimates spanning five decades and produce new sampling weights for the CPS microdata that are benchmarked to these estimates. Using these weights, we estimate harmonized labor force statistics that reflect the latest available information about the population and its characteristics. The harmonized labor force series are free from the discontinuities in the historical data and show a notably larger labor force shortfall in the post-pandemic period.