U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the principal federal statistical agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the U.S. economy. BLS collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates statistical data on employment, unemployment, inflation, wages, productivity, and occupational safety through a public API that provides programmatic access to published historical time series data.
Real signal across most facets with visible, nameable gaps — the contract exists but is thin, or the portal is good while governance and commercial terms are absent.
API Evangelist profiles U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the way a machine reads it — 65 machine-readable artifacts across 2 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics scores 56.8/100 (developing), with a separate agent-readiness read of 48/100 (agent ready). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.
How we profile U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 2
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Series API
Time series data operations for retrieving labor statistics across BLS surveys including employment, CPI, wages, and more.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Surveys API
Survey metadata and catalog operations for discovering available BLS surveys and their series identifiers.
Pricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Rate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
U S Bureau Of Labor Statistics Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSFinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Features 6
The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.
Notable capabilities this provider offers.
Time Series Data Access
Retrieve historical labor statistics data using BLS series IDs covering employment, unemployment, CPI, wages, and productivity.
Multiple Series in One Request
Version 2 API allows requesting up to 50 series in a single POST request, returning 20 years of data per series.
Net and Percent Change Calculations
Optional calculations including net change and percent change from prior periods are available in Version 2 responses.
Survey Catalog Discovery
Retrieve metadata for all available BLS surveys and discover popular series IDs through the catalog endpoint.
Annual Averages
Request annual average values (M13 period) alongside monthly data for trend analysis.
Public API with Free Registration
The BLS API is free to use. Version 1 requires no registration; Version 2 requires a free API key for higher query limits.
Semantic Vocabularies 1
JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
Bls Public Data Api Context
JSON-LDSpectral Rules 2
Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.
JSON Schema 13
Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.
Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.
Calculations
JSON SCHEMADataPoint
JSON SCHEMAFootnote
JSON SCHEMAMultipleSeriesRequest
JSON SCHEMAPeriodCalculations
JSON SCHEMAPopularSeriesResponse
JSON SCHEMASeriesCatalog
JSON SCHEMASeriesData
JSON SCHEMASeriesResponse
JSON SCHEMASeriesResults
JSON SCHEMASurveyMetadataResponse
JSON SCHEMASurvey
JSON SCHEMASurveysResponse
JSON SCHEMAScroll within the panel for all 13 ·
JSON Structure 13
JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.
JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.
Bls Calculations Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Data Point Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Footnote Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Multiple Series Request Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Period Calculations Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Popular Series Response Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Series Catalog Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Series Data Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Series Response Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Series Results Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Survey Metadata Response Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Survey Structure
JSON STRUCTUREBls Surveys Response Structure
JSON STRUCTUREScroll within the panel for all 13 ·
Examples 13
Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.
Example request and response payloads for these APIs.
Bls Calculations Example
EXAMPLEBls Data Point Example
EXAMPLEBls Footnote Example
EXAMPLEBls Series Catalog Example
EXAMPLEBls Series Data Example
EXAMPLEBls Series Response Example
EXAMPLEBls Series Results Example
EXAMPLEBls Survey Example
EXAMPLEBls Surveys Response Example
EXAMPLEScroll within the panel for all 13 ·
Security Posture 2
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Agentic Access 1
An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.
Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.
Use Cases 5
What developers actually build with this provider — captured so the catalogue answers 'what is this for', not just 'what does this expose'.
What developers build with this provider.
Economic Research
Economists and researchers use BLS time series data to analyze labor market trends, wage growth, and employment cycles.
Inflation Monitoring
Track CPI and PPI data for measuring inflation trends across consumer goods, food, energy, and other categories.
Employment Policy Analysis
Policy analysts use unemployment and employment statistics to evaluate labor market conditions and inform policy decisions.
Dashboard and Application Development
Developers integrate BLS data into economic dashboards, journalism applications, and data visualization tools.
Academic Research
Universities and think tanks use BLS historical data for econometric modeling, academic papers, and policy reports.
Integrations 4
Pre-built integrations with other platforms tell you where this provider already fits in a stack.
Pre-built integrations with other platforms and tools.
Python blsapi
Open-source Python package for querying the BLS API with support for v1 and v2 endpoints.
R blsAPI
CRAN R package providing a simple interface to the BLS Public Data API for statistical computing.
Microsoft Power Platform
BLS connector available in Power Automate, Power Apps, and Copilot Studio for low-code BLS data access.
data.gov
BLS datasets are cataloged on data.gov as part of the federal open data initiative.
Resources
Every other property we hold for U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Get Started 1
Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call
Documentation 1
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Agent Surfaces 1
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Design & Contract 2
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Access & Security 2
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 1
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Commercial 1
Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use
Company 2
The organization behind the API
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