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Office of Advocacy - The voice for small business in the Federal Government and the source for small business
 


Firm Size Data

 

Statistics of U.S. Businesses and Nonemployer Statistics

    | Introduction | U.S. Data| State and MSA Data| Nonemployers | Footnote |

    Introduction

    This website provides data on businesses with and without employees. These are referred to as “employer firms” and “nonemployer firms.” Employer firms have the lion’s share of receipts and payroll, while nonemployer firms are far more numerous.

    The U.S. Census Bureau provides Advocacy with data on employer firm size in the Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB). In these data, a firm is defined as the aggregation of all establishments owned by a parent company (within a geographic location and/or industry) that have some annual payroll. A firm may be located in one or more places.

    SUSB’s employer data contain the number of firms, number of establishments, employment, and annual payroll for employment size of firm categories by location and industry. The employer data consist of static and dynamic data. Unless otherwise noted, the data are static, that is, they are a "snapshot" of firms at a point in time. Receipts by employment size of firm are available for 1997 and 2002, and special tabulations by receipt size of firm are available for the United States. Industries are defined according to Standard Industrial Classification for 1988 to 1998; and the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) thereafter.

    NAICS uses two time periods to identify U.S., industries. SUSB data for 1998 -2002 uses NAICS 1997; and SUSB data for 2003 and beyond use NAICS 2002. The SUSB total falls short of the total number of firms because it excludes farms, and businesses without employees. (Because employment is measured in March, SUSB does have a firm size category of zero for firms that had no employees in March but had positive employment at some point during the year.) Farm data are available from other sources.  

    A nonemployer firm is defined as one that has no paid employees, has annual business receipts of $1,000 or more ($1 or more in the construction industries), and is subject to federal income taxes. The Census Bureau provides nonemployer business data. According to Census, "Nonemployers account for roughly 3 percent of business activity [in terms of sales or receipts]. At the same time nonemployers account for nearly three-quarters of all businesses. Most nonemployer businesses are very small, and many are not the primary source of income for their owners." See the U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics for more detailed information.  

    Public and federal agencies are encouraged to use the data for economic research and regulatory analyses. The Office of Advocacy defines a small business for research purposes as an independent business having fewer than 500 employees however, the SBA's Office of Size Standards has industry definitions of small businesses for government purposes.
     

    U.S. data (Microsoft Excel file of data for the following PDF files)

       Classified by employment size of firm

  • Segmenting the economy into 25 size classes, 2005 (PDF file) 1992-2005 (TXT file)
  • Totals, 1988-2005 (PDF file)
  • Major industries, 1988-1998, 1998-2005 (PDF files)
  • All industries by NAICS codes, 2005 (PDF file) (See the Excel file for more size classes)
  • All industries, 1990-1998, 1998-2002, 2003-2005 (TXT files)  

   Classified by receipt size of firm

   Dynamic data, by births, deaths, growth, and decline

Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (Microsoft Excel file of PDF files)

   Classified by employment size of firm

   Dynamic data, births, deaths, growth and decline

Nonemployer Statistics (Microsoft Excel file of PDF files)  

Footnotes

  • Annual payroll and receipts are in thousands of dollars.
  • A firm is defined as an aggregation of all establishments owned by a parent company (within a geographic location and/or industry) with some annual payroll.
  • Employment size categories are based on the national employment size of the firm in all industries. So if a firm has 20 employees in a given industry or location and has 10,000 total employees, the firm will be in the 500+ employee category for that given industry or location.
  • The text files are tab delimited text files. You can open the text file with spreadsheet software (files can be opened in database software but footnotes may be deleted).
  • Total_Code, 1 = industry division total.
  • E# represents data for firms with # employees. For multiple year data, the first two characters represent the year followed by the employment size class.
  • When disclosure is necessary sometimes ranges are footnoted ([a]=0-19, [b]=20-99, [c]=100-249, (D)=Disclosure, [e]=250-499, [f]=500-999, [g]=1,000-2,499, [h]=2,500-4,999, [I]=5,000-9,999, [j]=10,000-24,999, [k]=25,000-49,999, [l]=50,000-99,999, [m]=100,000+).
  • Information about the process of producing Statistics of U.S. Business (PDF file) is available.
     

Differences Between Static and Dynamic Data

Static data indicate the importance of firm size classes and the changing importance of firm size classes over time. Dynamic data indicate the growth of firm size classes over time. Unless indicated, the tables above refer to static data. Dynamic data were created using a longitudinal database from the U.S. Census Bureau.

  • Static firm size data – These data report the number of firms, number of establishments, employment, annual payroll, and estimated receipts by employment size of firm. Firms are defined by their employment size of firm at a point in time on a yearly basis. Because firms can change employment size classes from year to year, static firm size data cannot indicate the performance of employment size classes. However, comparisons of static firm size data can illustrate the changing importance of small and large firms by location (U.S., states, or MSAs), and/or industries.
  • Dynamic firm size data – These data report the number of and changes in establishments and employment classified by beginning year employment size of firm (firms remain in these categories for the end-of-year figures). Changes are caused by the creation of new firms (original establishments) or new establishments of existing firms (secondary establishments), deaths of original or secondary establishments, and expansion or contraction of employment at existing establishments. New firms are classified by their end-of-year firm size. Dynamic data show the performance of firm employment size categories.
  • Dynamic and static figures can differ because dynamic data exclude establishments with zero employment. Dynamic data's end-of-year figures in firm employment size categories will differ from static data of the same year because dynamic data's firms are defined by their beginning year employment size of firm. Dynamic data track firms that change in ownership or legal form during the year better than static data.
     

Historical research

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