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About the Business Expenses Supplement

Purpose:

To compile statistics on business operating expenses. The United States Code, Title 13, authorizes this program as part of the Economic Census.

Coverage:

Currently, the Business Expenses Supplement covers the following:

• Wholesale Distributors (NAICS 42, part)
• Retail Trade (NAICS 44-45)
• Accommodation and Food Services (NAICS 72)

Previously covered by the predecessor Business Expenses Survey, expenses data coverage of most industries in the service sector as of 2005 is part of the Service Annual Survey. Expenses data for manufacturing, mining, and construction sectors are covered in respective parts of the Economic Census.

Content:

All sampled businesses are asked to provide data on total and detailed operating expenses for the year covered.

Frequency:

Every five years in census years ending in "2" and "7", the same cycle as the Economic Census. Data collection begins in January following the census year. Reported data are requested for the calendar year. A new sample of businesses is introduced every five years.

Methods:

A mail-out/mail-back survey with an Internet reporting option of about 29,000 retail, accommodation, food services and wholesale businesses with paid employees, supplemented by administrative data to account for nonemployer businesses. The employer sample is drawn from the Census Bureau's Business Register, which contains all Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) and listed establishment locations.

Firms are first stratified by major kind of business and estimated sales. All firms with sales above applicable size cutoffs are selected into the survey and report for all their EINs in applicable industries. In a second stage, unselected EINs are stratified by major kind of business and sales, and randomly selected from each strata.

The sample is updated quarterly to reflect employer business "births" and "deaths"; adding new employer businesses identified in the Business and Professional Classification Survey and deleting firms when it is determined they are no longer active. There is about a nine month delay before new firms can be represented in the sample. To account for births during this interim period, full year data are imputed for all EIN firms that go out of business but are still active in administrative records.

Products:

Summary tables with detailed business expenses data will be released on the Internet in conjunction with the release of sales, purchases, and inventories data in the 2007 Annual Surveys of Wholesale Trade and Retail Trade. Data are published at the national level only and should be available July 2009 (preliminary data) and December 2010 (final data).

Uses:

Business expenses data are used routinely by government program officials, particularly the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis which uses the data for the Nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates and in developing the National Accounts input-output tables. Other users of business expenses data include market researchers, economic analysts, academics and business owners.

Special Features:

Provides the only reliable National data on detailed business expenses by kind of business for covered industries.

Related Programs: