Area clusters

The short answer

A cluster is not something you buy; a county is. An area cluster is a set of counties from your organization’s county set, saved under a name, that the app sums into one series labelled with that name. Clusters are free on every plan, unlimited, and shared with everyone in the organization. States and metropolitan areas can be selected directly in the areas picker without a cluster.

Making one

On the Clusters screen choose New area cluster, or pick counties in the areas picker and choose Save as area cluster (only the county picks are saved). A cluster can only contain counties in the organization’s county set; a county that later leaves the set is left out of the sum and the notice bar says so. Names are unique within the organization, regardless of capitals, and two clusters with exactly the same counties are refused, because they would return the same series under two names. Every member may build, edit and delete clusters. Editing a cluster changes the series for every workspace that uses it. A deleted cluster can be restored by an admin for a time, then is removed for good. While a payment is past due, clusters can be read but not created or edited.

What the picker refuses

A summed selection may not count the same place twice. If one area you pick contains another, such as a state and one of its counties, the contained one is dropped and the app says so. If two areas overlap without either containing the other, such as two metropolitan areas sharing a county, the selection is refused and the pair is named; remove one of them.

Metropolitan areas, current and retired

A metropolitan area follows the current delineation and expands to its counties; one that crosses a state line works, because counties do not care about state lines. An area that a later delineation retires stays in the picker, greyed and not selectable, marked Retired with the areas its counties went to. If a saved selection holds a retired area, a banner names it and offers its successors; nothing is swapped for you.

A cluster is not a state

A state selected in the areas picker is DTG’s value for the state, published by BLS where QCEW disclosed it, not a sum of counties, and it is free to everyone. A cluster assembled from that state’s counties is a sum of county values. It will carry more estimated values, because QCEW withholds far more at county level, and it will be smaller unless the state’s unallocated area is included.

How many counties each plan includes is on counties included in a plan. What aggregation does to each measure is on the methodology’s geography page.