Measuring the US Employment  Situation Using Online Panels: The  Yale Labor Survey

RePEc Short ID: pho784
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1899-5056

Foote, Christopher L.; Hounshell, Tyler; Nordhaus, William D.; Rivers, Douglas; Torola, Pamela

Report

Measuring the US Employment Situation Using Online Panels: The Yale Labor Survey

Abstract: This report presents the results of a rapid, low-cost survey that collects labor market data for individuals in the United States. The Yale Labor Survey (YLS) used an online panel from YouGov to replicate statistics from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the government’s source of household labor market statistics. The YLS’s advantages include its timeliness, low cost, and ability to develop new questions quickly to study labor market patterns during the coronavirus (COVID-19) 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.

Keywords: COVID-19; labor markets; Yale Labor Survey; online panels;

JEL Classification: C80; C81; C83; J01;