CBP-QCEW

County Business Patterns (CBP) and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)

County Business Patterns (CBP) and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) are both primary sources for detailed employment and wage data in the U.S., but they are produced by different agencies and have key differences in their scope, frequency, and data collection.

 
Key Differences
Agency: CBP is an annual series from the U.S. Census Bureau, while QCEW is a federal-state cooperative program from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

 
Frequency: CBP is annual, providing a snapshot of the economy for one week in March. QCEW is quarterly, with monthly employment and quarterly wage data, making it more timely.

 
Data Source: Both programs rely on administrative records. CBP uses data from the Census Bureau's Business Register, which is compiled from various sources, including IRS tax records. QCEW is primarily derived from unemployment insurance (UI) tax forms filed by employers, covering over 95% of all U.S. jobs.

 
Granularity: Both offer detailed data by geography (nation, state, county, and ZIP Code) and industry (NAICS codes). However, QCEW data is often considered the "gold standard" for its comprehensive and timely nature.

 
Data Uses: CBP is a foundational dataset used for economic analysis and as a benchmark. QCEW is also a benchmark, but its quarterly frequency makes it a key input for other BLS programs, such as the monthly jobs report (the Current Employment Statistics survey), and for calculating the wage and salary component of GDP by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

 
Complementary Nature
Despite their differences, the two programs are complementary. They are both used to get a complete picture of the U.S. economy. For example, some data points that are suppressed in QCEW to protect confidentiality can sometimes be unsuppressed by using information from CBP. In this way, they serve as a cross-check for one another and provide more comprehensive data when used together.