# Could I get the unemployment rate by conspuma?

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/could-i-get-the-unemployment-rate-by-conspuma/728>\
**Category:** USA\
**Created:** [December 2, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/could-i-get-the-unemployment-rate-by-conspuma/728 "2014-12-02T19:20:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mg2014](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@mg2014](https://forum.ipums.org/u/mg2014)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/could-i-get-the-unemployment-rate-by-conspuma/728/1 "2014-12-02T19:20:00Z")

</div>

I would like to know if it is possible to obtain the unemployment rate by CONSPUMA.

Thank you,

Esther

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tim\_Moreland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f1d935/32.png) [@Tim\_Moreland](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Tim_Moreland)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/could-i-get-the-unemployment-rate-by-conspuma/728/2 "2014-12-03T19:11:00Z")

</div>

Yes, it is possible to calculate the unemployment rate at the CONSPUMA level, although the availability of [CONSPUMA](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/CONSPUMA#availability_section) is restricted to 1980, 1990, 2000 and the 2005-2011 ACS samples. With that in mind, you can use the variable [EMPSTAT](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/EMPSTAT#codes_section) to identify if a person was Employed, Unemployed, or Not in Labor Force and use this information to calculate an unemployment rate at the CONSPUMA level.

As a word of caution, the unemployment rate you would calculate using IPUMS-USA data will differ (perhaps substantially) from the official unemployment rate calculated using [Current Population Survey](https://cps.ipums.org/cps/) data. You can read more about the reason for some of these differences [here](http://www.bls.gov/lau/acsqa.htm).

Hope this helps.