The Consumer Expenditure Survey program provides data on expenditures, income, and demographic characteristics of consumers in the United States. The BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) provides data on expenditures, income, and demographic characteristics of consumers in the United States. Lightcast utilizes this data heavily in the Input-Output model to model consumption on industries by national demographic by income type.

Lightcast uses CEX’s annually updated tables, which are generally released in September.