Measuring the U.S. Employment Situation Using Online Panels: The Yale Labor Survey

Christopher Foote, Tyler Hounshell (), William Nordhaus, Douglas Rivers and Pamela Torola ()
Additional contact information
Douglas Rivers: Stanford University
Pamela Torola: Tobin Predoctoral Program, Yale University, https://tobin.yale.edu

No 2282, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: This study presents the design and results of a rapid-fire survey that collects labor market data for individuals in the United States. The purpose is to test online panels for their application to social, economic, and demographic information as well as to apply this approach to the U.S. labor market. The Yale Labor Survey (YLS) used an online panel from YouGov to replicate statistics from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the government's official source of household labor market statistics. The YLS's advantages included its timeliness, low cost, and ability to develop new questions quickly to study unusual labor market patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from the YLS track employment data closely from the CPS during the pandemic. Although YLS estimates of unemployment and participation rates mirrored the broad trends in CPS data, YLS estimates of those two rates were less accurate than for employment. The study demonstrates the power of carefully crafted online surveys to replicate expensive traditional methods quickly and inexpensively.

Keywords: Employment; Unemployment; Survey; Weighting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 J1 J11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 69 pages
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ore
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Measuring the US Employment Situation Using Online Panels: The Yale Labor Survey (2021)
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