Integrated Longitudinal Employee-Employer Data for the United States

This paper discusses the critical need, in social sciences, for the development of a database infrastructure that captures the complex interactions among households and businesses at the micro level and characterizes the dynamics of the modern economy. The creation of such an infrastructure has posed a major challenge to national statistical institutes. Since most institutes collect, store, and disseminate data on the engines of economic growth--businesses and households--in twin data silos, proposals to integrate the two face technical, monetary, legal, and policy obstacles that go far beyond the norm of data collection activities. Recent efforts at the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program at the U.S. Census Bureau have finally made this critical data infrastructure achievable and accessible.