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bls

A Python library for the Bureau of Labor Statistics API.

Branch Status
master master branch status
dev dev branch status

Use the function get_series() to retrieve data. get_series() has four arguments: a series id or sequence of series ids, a start year, an end year, and an optional API key.

It is highly recommended that you register for an API key with BLS. You can supply the key to the library by passing it to get_series() or by setting an environment variable called BLS_API_KEY.

The timespan returned by the get_series() function depends on whether you specify startyear, endyear, api or some combination thereof, as shown in the table below:

startyear endyear api result
no no no BLS default (last 3 years)
yes no no Ten years starting from startyear or until present
no yes no Ten years ending with endyear
yes yes no startyear through endyear if ten years or fewer else error
no no yes BLS default (last 3 years)
yes no yes startyear through present
no yes yes Twenty years ending with endyear
yes yes yes startyear through endyear

bls is under development. Look for new features in the near future, and report bugs at https://github.com/OliverSherouse/bls/issues.