A First Look at the Jobs Frame Earnings Distribution

The jobs frame currently being developed by the Census Bureau will provide detailed, job-level information on the universe of administratively recorded employment that is longitudinal and updated on an annual basis in the United States. The jobs frame prototype described in this paper links UI and W2 data to develop a comprehensive measure of earnings for all employee-employer relationships in years 2005-2019. This technical note first details the creation of the jobs frame—including linking and deduplication of the underlying UI and W2 records—as well as an evaluation of the earnings differences found in the two sources. The paper then proceeds to compare earnings statistics at the job and person level. We find that there are some substantial differences in distributional statistics based on job-level UI and W2 data. These differences in statistics can be accounted for by differences in the scope of the populations covered by the two sources. A key finding is that Federal government jobs—including active military employment—are one important source of the discrepancy. In addition, private sector W2-only records are largely secondary jobs that are likely either short duration or low hours. Despite the differences found at the job-level, aggregate earnings statistics calculated at the person level are less sensitive to the data source used.