US Bureau of Labor Statistics website screenshot

US Bureau of Labor Statistics

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, price changes, and productivity in the US economy. BLS provides a Public Data API that enables developers to retrieve published historical time series data covering employment, unemployment, inflation, wages, productivity, and occupational statistics across all BLS programs. The API supports both unauthenticated access (v1) and registered access with higher limits (v2), returning data in JSON format for integration into applications, research tools, and economic dashboards.

US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes 3 APIs on the APIs.io network: Popular Series API, Surveys API, and Time Series API. Tagged areas include Federal Government, Labor Statistics, Economic Data, and Open Data.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ developer surface includes authentication and 3 more developer resources.

41.7/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 44/100 agent ready Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6
AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try
3 APIs
Federal GovernmentLabor StatisticsEconomic DataOpen Data

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6
Composite quality — 41.7/100 · thin
Contract Quality 17.1 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 2.2 / 20
Commercial Clarity 7.9 / 20
Operational Transparency 4.1 / 13
Governance 5.7 / 12
Discoverability 6.5 / 10
Agent readiness — 44/100 · agent ready
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8
Request/Response Examples 7 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
A2A Agent Card 0 / 8
Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 3

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

US Bureau of Labor Statistics Popular Series API

Retrieve the most popular BLS series identifiers

US Bureau of Labor Statistics Surveys API

Discover and list available BLS surveys

US Bureau of Labor Statistics Time Series API

Retrieve time series data for BLS statistical series

Open Collections 1

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

BLS Public Data API

OPEN COLLECTION

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Us Bureau Of Labor Statistics Context

3 classes · 30 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 2

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

US Bureau of Labor Statistics API Rules

10 rules · 2 errors 5 warnings 3 info

SPECTRAL

US Bureau of Labor Statistics API Rules

6 rules · 4 warnings 2 info

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 1

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

BLS Time Series

4 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 1

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Bls Time Series Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 2

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Bls List Surveys Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Us Bureau Of Labor Statistics Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Us Bureau Of Labor Statistics Agentic Access

5 operations · 1 acting

5 operations · 1 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Company 1

The organization behind the API

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑
aid: us-bureau-of-labor-statistics
name: US Bureau of Labor Statistics
description: The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring labor market
  activity, working conditions, price changes, and productivity in the US economy. BLS provides a Public Data API that enables
  developers to retrieve published historical time series data covering employment, unemployment, inflation, wages, productivity,
  and occupational statistics across all BLS programs. The API supports both unauthenticated access (v1) and registered access
  with higher limits (v2), returning data in JSON format for integration into applications, research tools, and economic dashboards.
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics.png
tags:
- Federal Government
- Labor Statistics
- Economic Data
- Open Data
created: '2025-02-09'
modified: '2026-05-19'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.19'
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-authentication.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bureau-of-labor-statistics
apis:
- aid: us-bureau-of-labor-statistics:us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-popular-series-api
  name: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Popular Series API
  description: Retrieve the most popular BLS series identifiers
  humanURL: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
  baseURL: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2
  tags:
  - Popular Series
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-popular-series-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
  - type: Registration
    url: https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/termsOfService.htm
  - type: DataAPI
    url: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/
- aid: us-bureau-of-labor-statistics:us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-surveys-api
  name: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Surveys API
  description: Discover and list available BLS surveys
  humanURL: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
  baseURL: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2
  tags:
  - Surveys
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-surveys-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
  - type: Registration
    url: https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/termsOfService.htm
  - type: DataAPI
    url: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/
- aid: us-bureau-of-labor-statistics:us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-time-series-api
  name: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Time Series API
  description: Retrieve time series data for BLS statistical series
  humanURL: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
  baseURL: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2
  tags:
  - Time Series
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/us-bureau-of-labor-statistics-time-series-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/home.htm
  - type: Registration
    url: https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.bls.gov/developers/termsOfService.htm
  - type: DataAPI
    url: https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/
features:
- name: Time Series Data Retrieval
  description: Retrieve historical time series data for one or multiple BLS series IDs
- name: Multi-Series Requests
  description: Query up to 50 series per request with API v2 registration
- name: Date Range Filtering
  description: Filter data by start and end year to retrieve specific date ranges
- name: Statistical Calculations
  description: Request net changes and percent changes alongside raw values (v2)
- name: Series Catalog
  description: Retrieve metadata and descriptions for series (v2)
- name: Annual Averages
  description: Include annual average values in time series responses (v2)
- name: Survey Discovery
  description: List all BLS surveys and their metadata
- name: Popular Series
  description: Retrieve the 25 most popular BLS series IDs
useCases:
- name: Economic Research Dashboard
  description: Build dashboards displaying unemployment rate trends, CPI inflation data, and wage growth
- name: Labor Market Analysis
  description: Analyze employment patterns across industries, occupations, and demographics
- name: Inflation Monitoring
  description: Track Consumer Price Index changes for economic forecasting and policy analysis
- name: Occupational Wage Studies
  description: Retrieve occupational employment and wage data for compensation benchmarking
- name: FOIA Data Applications
  description: Access publicly available BLS survey data for transparency and accountability reporting
solutions:
- name: Economic Intelligence Platforms
  description: Integrate BLS data into economic intelligence and forecasting platforms
- name: HR Analytics Tools
  description: Power HR compensation analysis tools with BLS wage and employment data
- name: Government Data Portals
  description: Enrich government open data portals with BLS statistical datasets
integrations:
- name: data.gov
  description: BLS datasets are cataloged and accessible through data.gov
  url: https://catalog.data.gov/organization/bls-gov
- name: api.data.gov
  description: BLS API is accessible via the api.data.gov gateway
  url: https://api.data.gov
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com