IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2025-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Harmonized Population and Labor Force Statistics

Author

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 backward through history. We construct harmonized population estimates spanning five decades and produce new 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.

Suggested Citation

  • John Coglianese & Seth Murray & Christopher J. Nekarda, 2025. "Harmonized Population and Labor Force Statistics," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2025-057, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2025-57
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2025.057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2025057pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2025.057?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julia A. Rivera Drew & Sarah Flood & John Robert Warren, 2014. "Making full use of the longitudinal design of the Current Population Survey: Methods for linking records across 16 months\m{1}," Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, IOS Press, issue 3, pages 121-144.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Filippos Petroulakis, 2023. "Task Content and Job Losses in the Great Lockdown," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(3), pages 586-613, May.
    2. Chodorow-Reich, Gabriel & Coglianese, John, 2021. "Projecting unemployment durations: A factor-flows simulation approach with application to the COVID-19 recession," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    3. Hudomiet, Péter & Willis, Robert J., 2022. "Computerization, obsolescence and the length of working life," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. repec:osf:socarx:f53kz_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Créchet, Jonathan & Cui, Jing & Sabada, Barbara & Sawyer, Antoine, 2024. "Why Don't Firms Hire Young Workers During Recessions? A Replication of Forsythe (The Economic Journal, 2022)," I4R Discussion Paper Series 163, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    6. Kusum Mundra & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2021. "Using repeated cross-sectional data to examine the role of immigrant birth-country networks on unemployment duration: an application of Guell and Hu (2006) approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 389-415, July.
    7. Francesco Agostinelli & Emilio Borghesan & Giuseppe Sorrenti, 2020. "Welfare, Workfare and Labor Supply: A Unified Evaluation," Working Papers 2020-083, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    8. Pierre Brochu & Jonathan Crechet, 2022. "Survey Non-Response in COVID-19 Times: The Case of the Labour Force Survey," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 48(3), pages 451-472, September.
    9. Jiang, Dezhi, 2021. "Whose Investments in Higher Education Have Been Most Influenced by Labor Market Conditions in Recent Decades?," SocArXiv 83upm, Center for Open Science.
    10. Ioannis Kospentaris, 2021. "Unobserved Heterogeneity and Skill Loss in a Structural Model of Duration Dependence," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 39, pages 280-303, January.
    11. Mukoyama, Toshihiko & Takayama, Naoki & Tanaka, Satoshi, 2025. "Occupational reallocation within and across firms: Implications for labor market polarization," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    12. Catherine Laffineur & Maria Minniti & Benjamin Montmartin, 2023. "Does Knowledge in Management Foster Firm Creation and Performance?," GREDEG Working Papers 2023-19, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    13. Christian vom Lehn & Cache Ellsworth & Zachary Kroff, 2022. "Reconciling Occupational Mobility in the Current Population Survey," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(4), pages 1005-1051.
    14. Osborne Jackson, 2023. "Occupational Licensing and Occupational Mobility," Working Papers 23-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    15. Gottfries, Axel & Teulings, Coen, 2017. "Returns to On-the-Job Search and the Dispersion of Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 10668, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Kevin Donovan & Jianyu Lu & Todd Schoellman, 2018. "Labor Market Flows and Development," 2018 Meeting Papers 976, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Bai, John (Jianqiu) & Eldemire, Ashleigh & Serfling, Matthew, 2024. "The effect of labor mobility on corporate investment and performance over the business cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    18. Axel Gottfries & Coen N. Teulings, 2017. "Returns to On-The-Job Search and the Dispersion of Wages," CESifo Working Paper Series 6410, CESifo.
    19. Thomas B. Foster, 2017. "Decomposing American immobility: Compositional and rate components of interstate, intrastate, and intracounty migration and mobility decline," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 37(47), pages 1515-1548.
    20. repec:osf:socarx:2fnkp_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Shen, Kailing & Zhu, Yanran, 2023. "Labor Force Transition Dynamics: Unemployment Rate or Job Posting Counts?," IZA Discussion Papers 16373, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    22. Grashuis, Jasper, 2021. "Self-employment duration during the COVID-19 pandemic: A competing risk analysis," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 15(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C80 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - General
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2025-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.