Commercial Printing Data Provider · Head-to-head
US BEA — GDP & Industry Accounts for Printing vs US BLS Public Data API — PPI, CES & OES for Printing
Which commercial printing data provider data fits your job: US BEA — GDP & Industry Accounts for Printing, or US BLS Public Data API — PPI, CES & OES for Printing. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
US BEA — GDP & Industry Accounts for Printing
US BLS Public Data API — PPI, CES & OES for Printing
Where the fields line up
No shared field names. These two answer different questions.
| Field | US BEA — GDP & Industry Accounts for Printing | US BLS Public Data API — PPI, CES & OES for Printing |
|---|---|---|
Value added by industry | documented | not in this set |
Compensation of employees | documented | not in this set |
Gross operating surplus | documented | not in this set |
Taxes on production | documented | not in this set |
Gross output | documented | not in this set |
Intermediate inputs | documented | not in this set |
KLEMS production statistics | documented | not in this set |
status | not in this set | Success marker carried on every delivered batch, confirming the pull completed before rows are handed over. |
responseTime | not in this set | Processing time reported alongside a pull, in milliseconds - useful for spotting heavy batches in automated pipelines. |
message | not in this set | Human-readable notices that ride along with a batch whenever something needs flagging about the records inside. |
Results.series.seriesID | not in this set | The series identifier each observation belongs to; the ID encodes survey family, industry and measure, so PCU32311-32311- reads as PPI industry data for Printing. |
series.data.year | not in this set | Four-digit year of the observation. |
Coverage, side by side
| US BEA — GDP & Industry Accounts for Printing | US BLS Public Data API — PPI, CES & OES for Printing | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | United States national industry accounts only — no state or metro detail in this record | United States national series; OEWS extends to state and metropolitan-area occupational estimates |
| Temporal | Annual 1997–present (1998 for percent-change and contributions tables); quarterly 2005–present | PPI printing indexes from December 2003 (some product series from 1990); CES printing employment from January 1990; OEWS annually (current reference year 2025) |
| Granularity | Industry x table x year/quarter, isolated via BEA industry codes with a published NAICS concordance | Monthly PPI and CES observations, annual OEWS, at NAICS 3-, 4-, 5-digit and product level |
What each contains
They tie on 2 attributes. Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| US BEA — GDP & Industry Accounts for Printing | US BLS Public Data API — PPI, CES & OES for Printing | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Subject lens | GDP-by-industry accounting for printing (NAICS 323): value added, employee compensation, gross operating surplus, taxes on production, gross output, intermediate inputs, KLEMS production | Printing timeseries under three program families: Producer Price Indexes, Current Employment Statistics employment/hours/earnings, and OEWS occupational employment and wages |
| Geography | United States national industry accounts only — no state or metro detail in this record | United States national series; OEWS extends to state and metropolitan-area occupational estimates |
| Temporal reach | Annual 1997–present (1998 for percent-change and contributions tables); quarterly 2005–present | PPI printing indexes from December 2003 (some product series from 1990); CES printing employment from January 1990; OEWS annually (current reference year 2025) |
| Granularity | Industry x table x year/quarter, isolated via BEA industry codes with a published NAICS concordance | Monthly PPI and CES observations, annual OEWS, at NAICS 3-, 4-, 5-digit and product level |
| Scale | Dozens of tables across GDPbyIndustry, UnderlyingGDPbyIndustry and InputOutput datasets; a full-table pull returns thousands of cells | 49 PPI series under NAICS 323; roughly 20 CES series for industry 32323000; ~15 data types per occupation for OEWS industry 323100 |
| Documented fields | 10 documented fields, verified | 10 documented fields, verified |
| Rubric rating | 9 out of 10 | 9 out of 10 |
| Best for | How big printing is and what it earns — value added and output counted | What printing costs and employs — prices, payrolls and wages tracked |
Or take both in one feed
They stack as size plus motion. Anchor the size with BEA: gross output and value added for NAICS 323 set the scale of the US printing economy and its real trend since 1997. Deflated that way, nominal revenue divided by the matching PPI index reproduces the real-output story BEA tells independently — two agencies, one checkable answer.
Datadory delivers both records normalized to a common schema, so the join happens once instead of in every project. Sample either feed alone. Or take both in one feed.
API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Fair questions
Which dataset covers more geography?
Depends which program family you mean. Within the pairing, the BLS record wins on subnational detail because OEWS publishes occupational employment and wage estimates for states and metropolitan areas alongside the national series. The BEA record holds national industry accounts only — state and county economics live in BEA's separate Regional product, outside this dataset.
Which goes further back in time?
The BEA accounts: annual GDP-by-industry estimates run from 1997, quarterly from 2005. On the BLS side, CES printing employment starts January 1990 and some PPI product series reach 1990, but the headline printing PPI industry index begins December 2003 and OEWS is an annual snapshot with the current file at reference year 2025.
Do the two datasets report the same number for printing?
No, and conflating them distorts models. BEA reports dollars of value added and gross output produced by the industry; BLS reports index levels, headcounts and wages. The bridge is deflation: divide printer revenue growth by the matching PPI commercial printing index and the result should reconcile with BEA's chained-dollar real-output trend — a useful independent check.
Which should a commercial-printing analyst sample first?
Sample both, pick by fit. Start with the BEA accounts for market sizing, investor decks and demand-model features anchored in gross output and value added. Most printing work needs the size from one and the motion from the other.