U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Consumer Expenditure Survey
Bureau of Labor Statistics > Consumer Expenditure Survey > Data > Public Use Microdata Documentation

PUMD Documentation

This page contains the documentation for the CE public-use microdata (PUMD).

All year-specific Interview and Diary Survey documentation has been combined into the PUMD Getting Started Guide.

Additional resources

  • Survey materials lists the documents used to collect data for the Interview Survey and the Diary Survey.
  • Hierarchical groupings (zip) includes a description of each UCC along with its hierarchical standing within each expenditure or income category for a given year. Hierarchical groupings are not available for years prior to 1996. For years 1996 and forward, three file types are available:
    • Integrated groupings lists UCCs that the CE tables use, and identifies the survey source for the UCCs. These files use this naming convention: CE-HG-Integ-2017.
    • Interview groupings lists the UCCs from the Interview Survey. These files use this naming convention: CE-HG-Inter-2017. Not available for 1996.
    • Diary groupings list the UCCs from the Diary Survey. These files use this naming convention: CE-HG-Diary-2017. Not available for 1996.

      For each UCC, the files provide this information:

    ColumnContentStart positionOptions

    1

    		Type of information in the line11: First line of name
    2: Second line of name
    *: Comment line

    2

    		Level of aggregation4Highest level of aggregation is 1 and lowest 9.

    3

    		Name of the UCC7

    4

    		UCC lists the identifier of the UCC70

    5

    		Source or purpose of the UCC83I: Interview survey
    D: Diary survey
    G and T: Titles
    S: Statistical UCCs

    6

    		Factor by which the mean has to be multiplied to match the annualized data in the published tables861: Multiply times 1
    4: Multiply times 4

    7

    		Data sections89CUCHARS: CU characteristics
    FOOD: Food expenditures
    EXPEND: Non-food expenditures
    INCOME: Income types
    ASSETS: Asset types
    ADDENDA: Other financial information and gifts