What changes, in particular, are being made to the way unemployment rates are calculated for cities?
With improvements in geocoding capability, the LMCI Department will be adopting a new BLS-approved method for producing city-level unemployment rates. In the past, the LMCI Department used a census-share methodology to derive city-level labor force estimates. This involved using census ratios (city employment/unemployment as a ratio of county employment/unemployment) from the decennial census and multiplying these ratios by more current county-level employment/unemployment estimates. This method had a significant weakness: It held the ratio of city-to-county employment/unemployment constant from the last decennial census until the release of the next decennial census data, which was up to 15 years later. We know that a number of suburban counties outside metropolitan areas saw significant population growth in the 1990s, therefore the 1990 ratios likely no longer accurately described the local labor market picture. In the past, this was the only method approved by BLS for states to prod
