BLS Economic Data Search - CPI, Unemployment, Wages & Employment Stats

Search the Bureau of Labor Statistics for CPI inflation, unemployment rates, employment, wages, job openings, and more. National or state-level monthly time series data. No API key required.

What data is available

Indicator	Description	State-level
Unemployment Rate	Civilian unemployment rate	Yes
CPI (Consumer Price Index)	CPI-U, All Items — measures inflation	No (national only)
Nonfarm Employment	Total nonfarm payroll jobs	Yes
Average Hourly Earnings	Private sector average hourly earnings	No
Job Openings (JOLTS)	Total job openings from JOLTS survey	No
Producer Price Index	PPI Final Demand	No
Labor Force Participation	Civilian labor force participation rate	No
Weekly Earnings	Median usual weekly earnings	No
Custom	Any BLS series ID (find at data.bls.gov)	Depends on series

Use cases

• Economic research — track inflation, employment, and wage trends over time
• Financial analysis — CPI data for real return calculations and inflation adjustments
• Labor market analysis — unemployment and job openings by state
• Compensation benchmarking — average hourly earnings and weekly earnings trends
• Real estate — correlate CPI and employment data with housing markets
• Policy analysis — monitor labor force participation and JOLTS data

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
indicator	string	unemployment_rate	Which economic indicator to fetch
seriesId	string		Custom BLS series ID (only for "custom" indicator)
state	string		State name for state-level data (e.g. "California")
startYear	integer	end year - 2	First year of data
endYear	integer	current year	Last year of data
maxResults	integer	100	Maximum data points to return

Example output

[
  {
    "seriesId": "LNS14000000",
    "indicator": "Unemployment Rate",
    "year": "2025",
    "period": "M12",
    "periodName": "December",
    "value": "4.4"
  },
  {
    "seriesId": "LNS14000000",
    "indicator": "Unemployment Rate",
    "year": "2025",
    "period": "M11",
    "periodName": "November",
    "value": "4.5"
  }
]

State-level data

Unemployment rate and nonfarm employment support state-level queries. Pass the full state name (e.g. "California", "New York", "Texas"). The actor maps state names to FIPS codes and constructs the correct BLS series ID automatically.

{
  "indicator": "unemployment_rate",
  "state": "California",
  "startYear": 2020,
  "endYear": 2025
}

Custom series IDs

For indicators not in the preset list, use the "custom" indicator with any valid BLS series ID. Find series IDs at data.bls.gov.

{
  "indicator": "custom",
  "seriesId": "CUUR0300SA0",
  "startYear": 2020,
  "endYear": 2025
}

Rate limits

The BLS API without a registration key allows:

• 25 series per query
• 10 years of data per request (the actor handles multi-window fetching automatically)
• No daily request limit documented

Data source

All data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Public Data API v2. Data is public domain (U.S. government work).

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