economy_industry_wages_county_year_naics
QCEW wages by county, year, and NAICS — long format (E3). Tier A.
tier aadmin_record
overview
overview
100,776 rows - county x NAICS x year. QCEW wage data parallel to employment table.
current vintage — 2024 annual averages
history — QCEW NAICS-based wages: 2001-present
provenance
source & licensing
authority
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
dataset
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) — wages by county × NAICS (2024)
source url
methodology
license
Public domain (U.S. Federal Government work)
citation
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW - wages by county x NAICS, 1990-2024.
schema
fields
| name | type | definition |
|---|---|---|
| annual_avg_wkly_wage | int64 · dollars (nominal) | Average weekly wage per worker, computed as total annual wages divided by average monthly employment divided by 13 weeks. Higher values indicate higher typical weekly earnings in the industry. |
| avg_annual_pay | int64 · dollars (nominal) | Average annual pay per worker, computed as total annual wages divided by annual average employment. Higher values indicate higher typical annual compensation in the industry. |
| country_idkey | string | ISO alpha-2 country code (always 'US' for domestic tables).Part of primary key. |
| county_idkey | string | 5-character FIPS code identifying the county.Part of primary key. Joins dim.counties on county_id. |
| disclosure_code | string | BLS confidentiality suppression flag; a non-empty value (e.g., 'N') indicates the record's wage data was withheld to protect the identity of individual employers. Empty string means the data is fully disclosed. |
| naics_codekey | string | NAICS industry classification code identifying the industry sector for this record. Uses the standard 2–6 digit NAICS hierarchy; broader codes aggregate narrower ones.Part of primary key. Joins dim.naics_codes on naics_code. |
| ownership_code | string | BLS ownership type code distinguishing private-sector establishments from federal, state, and local government (e.g., '5' = private, '1' = federal government). Follows BLS QCEW ownership code conventions. |
| state_idkey | string | 2-character FIPS code identifying the state.Part of primary key. Joins dim.states on state_id. |
| total_annual_wages | int64 · dollars (nominal) | Total wages paid to all covered workers in the county-industry-ownership cell for the calendar year. Higher values indicate greater aggregate payroll. |
| yearkey | int64 | Reference year of the observation.Part of primary key. |
relationships
joins
primary key
county_id, state_id, country_id, year, naics_code
common joins
dim.geographies on county_id
economy_industry_employment_county_year_naics on (county_id, naics_code, year)
economy_personal_income_county_year on (county_id, year)
usage
how to use this table
method
QCEW total quarterly wages summed across employers by county x NAICS x ownership. Average annual pay = total annual wages / annual average employment.
do not use for
Hourly wages (no hours data); benefits or total compensation (wages only); non-wage income; comparison across NAICS revisions without crosswalk.
known issues
Same suppression rules as employment table. Average pay can be misleading when establishment composition shifts within NAICS.
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last updated · Jul 7, 2026