The Data

In 1999, the U.S. Census Bureau established the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) partnership with states to collect labor market statistics (i.e., Quarterly Workforce Indicators) on employment, earnings (e.g., unemployment insurance earnings data), and job creation. In 2002, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies launched the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program. LEHD creates public-use information and tools by combining LED data with other administrative data from federal, state, and Census Bureau data on employers and employees.

Through a partnership with the LEHD, the University of Texas (UT) System linked student data with national unemployment insurance wage records for post-graduate earnings of UT degree recipients. The collaboration between the U.S. Census Bureau and the UT System was impactful in several ways:

1. Creating a comprehensive national student employment outcomes dataset.
2. Providing a space for postsecondary professionals from the UT System to work with U.S. Census economists to understand each other’s worlds and language.
3. Establishing a standard methodology to report earnings outcomes to improve the data quality.

UT System employees spent more than 12 months working with LEHD employees to develop a data framework that would provide national earnings data in aggregate by either the two- or four-digit Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code. Since the project began, institutions, systems, and agencies from 29 additional states, the District of Columbia, and Western Governors University have joined the PSEO project.

As part of the PSEO collaboration, LEHD developed the PSEO Explorer. This free online dashboard provides visualizations based on the earnings, flow, and geographic location data for students who completed their credentials in the participating states, postsecondary systems, and institutions.