Platform · Glossary
BLS — Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The federal agency responsible for wage, employment, and inflation data. 3Y reads BLS data for two main purposes: local-area wage levels and growth (a leading signal for rent strength) and CPI series used to deflate or inflate long-horizon projections.
What 3Y uses, specifically
- Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAU) — county-level unemployment rates used in the location score's economic-strength category
- Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) — wage levels and growth at county and metro level
- CPI series — for converting historical and projected nominal figures into comparable real terms
These complement ACS demographic data — ACS describes who lives in an area, BLS describes what they earn.