U.S. Census Bureau as authorized by Title 13, United States Code, Section 161 for Census years and 182 for non-Census years.

The Survey of Public Employment & Payroll measures the number of state and local civilian government employees and their gross monthly payroll for March of the survey year.

Annual survey and census data consist of state and local government full- and part-time employment, full-time equivalent employment, and month of March payroll statistics by government function.

Government functions include:

• Air Transporation
• Corrections
• Education - Elementary and Secondary Instructional
• Education - Elementary and Secondary Other
• Education – Higher Education Instructional
• Education – Higher Education Other
• Education – Other
• Electric Power
• Financial Administation
• Fire Protection – Firerfighters
• Fire Protection – Other
• Gas Supply
•  Judicial & Legal
• Health
• Hospitals
• Housing & Community Development
• Libraries
• Natural Resources
• Parks & Recreation
• Police Protection – Persons with Power of Arrest
• Police Protection – Other
• Public Welfare
• Sea and Inland Ports
• Sewerage
• Social Insurance Administration
• Solid Waste Management
• State Liquor Stores
• Transit
• Water Supply
• All other & unallocable

For additional information on government functions, please see the Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual.

A full census is conducted every five years (in year ending in ‘2’ and ‘7’). In the intervening years, data are collected from a sample of state and local governments. A new sample is selected following each census. 

Data have been collected annually since 1957, with the exception of 1996. The Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll was not conducted that year, and the base reporting period for payroll was changed from October to March. This change took effect with the 1997 Census of Governments, Survey of Public Employment & Payroll.

Data tables are available on data.census.gov from 1992 to the current reference year. Data are aggregated to state and national totals by function and available for the state-, local-, and state and local-levels. The data are also available for the same years through the Public Sector: Public Employment and Payroll API.

Individual unit files, including all data items by government functions for indvidual governments are available on the data tables page.

The U.S. Congress, federal agencies, state and local governments, educational and research organizations, and the general public employ these results. Some major uses include the following:

• Development of the government component of the gross domestic product estimates
• Development of the national income accounts
• Development of personal income figures for state and county areas
• Allocation of certain federal grant funds
• Legislative research
• Wage and salary negotiations by state and local governments
• Comparative studies of state and local government employment

Please email us at: [email protected] or call 1-800-642-4901.