U.S. Department of Commerce
U.S. Census Bureau
OMB Information Collection Request
Business Trends and Outlook Survey
OMB Control Number 0607-1022
Gray highlight – main changes from original BTOS OMB statements
Necessity of Information Collection
The mission of the U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) is to serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation's people and economy; in order to fulfill this mission, it is necessary to innovate to produce more detailed, more frequent, and more timely data products. The Coronavirus pandemic was an impetus for the creation of new data products by the Census Bureau to measure the pandemic’s impact on the economy: the Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS) and the weekly Business Formation Statistics. Policymakers and other federal agency officials, media outlets, and academia commended the Census Bureau’s rapid response to their data needs during the largest economic crisis in recent American history. The Census Bureau capitalized on the successes that underlaid the high frequency data collection and near real time data dissemination engineered for the SBPS by creating the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS).
BTOS uses ongoing data collection to produce high frequency, timely, and granular information about current economic conditions and trends. BTOS is the only biweekly business tendency survey produced by the federal statistical system, providing unique and detailed data during times of economic or other emergencies. The BTOS initial target population is all nonfarm, single-location employer businesses with receipts of $1,000 or more in the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The current sample consists of approximately 1.2 million single-unit businesses split into six panels. Data collection occurs every two weeks, and businesses in each panel are asked to report once every 12 weeks for one year. Current data from BTOS are representative of all single location employer businesses (excluding farms) in the U.S. economy and are published every two weeks. The data are available at the national and state levels, in addition to the 25 most-populous Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) sector, subsector, and state by sector are also published, as are employment size class, and sector by employment size class data, according to the same timeline.
Data from BTOS are currently used to provide timely data to understand the economic conditions being experienced by single unit businesses; BTOS provides near real time data on key items such as revenue, paid employees, hours worked as well as inventories which is being added in for the second collection cycle. BTOS also provides high level information on the changing share of businesses facing difficulties stemming from supply chain issues, interest rate changes, or weather events. Previously, there had been few data sources available to policymakers, media outlets, and academia that delivered near real-time insights into economic trends and outlooks. BTOS data has been used by the Small Business Administration to evaluate the impact of regulatory changes. Use of the BTOS data (or additional requirements) is being determined by the Economic Development Agency (EDA) to understand the impact of natural disasters on U.S. businesses for the EDA to then guide the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and/or policymakers in assisting in economic recovery support missions.
In the approved OMB package for BTOS, the Census Bureau proposed an incremental path to reach the full scope of BTOS. This request is the first scope expansion to propose adding multi-unit businesses (those with more than one location or establishment) to BTOS. BTOS is currently limited in scope to include only single-unit businesses. Despite comprising a relatively small share of the total number of businesses, multi-unit (MU) businesses are responsible for most of the employment, payroll, and revenue/sales in the United States and contribute disproportionately to economic activity. In addition, MU businesses are on average larger than single-unit businesses. Adding these businesses would help ensure that BTOS results are representative of the full economy. The Census Bureau still proposes an incremental path to the final scope of BTOS in order to learn at each implemented stage and to allow for modifications based on lessons learned or internal/external stakeholder feedback in prior iterations.
For the first year of BTOS, the content remained unchanged at 26 questions. After two rounds of cognitive testing and guidance from data users, the Census Bureau will move to a set of core questions and supplemental content, when needed. In addition to adding multi-unit businesses, the Census Bureau also proposes to change the content to what is included on attachment A on the second year of BTOS collection. The content on attachment A will be referred to as the core content and comprises most questions included on the BTOS instrument during the first year of collection. Core content includes measures of economic activity that are broadly applicable across non-farm sectors and are important across the business cycle and during economic or other emergencies. Core content is also complementary to key items found on other Economic surveys, such as revenues, employees, hours, and inventories. Core items may also include concepts that may become core topics. For example, the artificial intelligence questions on attachment A. The core content remains an at approximately six minutes of burden. A skip pattern will be added for the new core concept of inventories to avoid additional burden if a business does not carry inventories.
Supplemental content will be included on the instrument as needed and with a regular periodicity. It will be designed to provide urgently needed data on an emerging or current issue. The supplement will include a set of questions that perform a deeper dive into a focused topic that requires timely data. Attachment B in this OMB package is a draft of the supplemental content we plan to add to the instrument in December 2023. The Census Bureau plans to submit final content prior to OMB giving clearance. The Census Bureau estimates the supplemental questions will impose an additional 2 minutes of burden.
Consideration for core and supplemental concepts will be based on data consistency, how the questions performed on the current BTOS, the results of cognitive testing, stakeholder feedback, and the ability to collect complementary items on monthly, quarterly, annual, or census programs to provide context and benchmarking. Thus, the Census Bureau is requesting three years of approval from OMB to expand the scope of BTOS to include multi-unit businesses and adjust the core and include supplemental content.
OMB approved the BTOS on May 2, 2022, with the understanding that the Census Bureau will submit a performance evaluation one year after the BTOS data collection commenced. The performance evaluation, which is included as Attachment D, includes information on the quality of the survey, how to adjust/improve methods, and other issues relevant to the performance of the BTOS.
For future changes, the Census Bureau will submit a request to OMB including 30 days of public comment announced in the Federal Register to receive approval to make any substantive revisions to the content or methods of the proposed survey, including incremental scope changes. It is likely new supplemental content will be chosen for each year and an updated instrument will be submitted to OMB for review along with a 30-day Federal Register Notice.
This collection is authorized under Title 13 U.S.C., Sections 131 and 182.
Needs and Uses
The BTOS is a survey with bi-weekly data collection and publication; estimates produced from the BTOS are released as experimental data products. The SBPS demonstrated the ability of the Census Bureau to collect and publish high frequency, timely data during a national economic emergency. The BTOS capitalizes on this success and provides regularly occurring high frequency data products and measures of quality based on national and subnational representative samples using transparent methodology. The BTOS produces data continuously, in part as a response to feedback on the SBPS that longer time series would have been useful to contextualize the pandemic impact. Continuous data allows for the measurement of economic trends during all phases of the business cycle as well as during times of economic and other emergencies. The BTOS uniquely provides the ability to produce these data and associated measures of quality.
The Census Bureau proposes to add multi-unit businesses to the target population of the BTOS beginning in the second year of data collection starting on September 11, 2023. Adding these businesses would help ensure that BTOS results are representative of the full economy. BTOS will continue to publish data using standard business size class categories and will research the expansion of additional size classes for publication, thus continuing to be responsive to stakeholders whose missions include supporting small business research, analysis and advocacy and reflecting numerous requests from data users to monitor economic trends impacting small businesses. As with other Census Bureau data products, detailed methodology and measures of quality will be published for BTOS data products. BTOS products will be based on representative samples drawn from the full universe of businesses, making them unique and the results reliable when compared to other high frequency business survey data such as those produced in the private sector.
Core content on the BTOS is used to create high frequency economic measures including inputs (for example, employment and hours), outcomes (for example, output prices) and conditions faced by businesses (for example, demand). Survey responses are used to create national level as well as industry and geographically detailed diffusions indexes which are easily interpretable as measures of change over time for these core measures. No other federal statistical data products exist which provide high frequency measures such as those produced by BTOS.
Information quality is an integral part of the pre-dissemination review of the information disseminated by the Census Bureau (fully described in the Census Bureau's Information Quality Guidelines). Information quality is also integral to the information collections conducted by the Census Bureau and is incorporated into the clearance process required by the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Use of Information Technology
BTOS data will continue to be collected via an electronic reporting instrument. Businesses receive an invitation to respond via email or letter. The email and letter provide a link to the secure electronic reporting system, Centurion. The collection instrument is optimized for mobile response to further reduce respondent burden and increase participation. The respondent navigates through the electronic reporting instrument by responding to each screen presented. Respondents can view a PDF of the questions prior to logging into the instrument. Once a respondent has completed the online survey, a PDF copy of their responses may be printed or saved for business records.
Efforts to Identify Duplication
The Census Bureau leveraged relationships established during the creation of the SBPS to gain insight into the usefulness of the proposed collection from program and research staffs at the Administration for Children and Families, Department of Housing and Human Services; the Bureau of Economic Analysis; the Bureau of Labor Statistics; the Bureau of Transportation Statistics; the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; the International Trade Administration; the Minority Business Development Agency; and the Small Business Administration. Generally, representatives noted the benefits provided by the SBPS as well as provided recommendations for improvement for the new proposed program; the Census Bureau interprets these remarks as support for the proposed products of the BTOS.
The Census Bureau will continue to engage in communication with the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Business Response Survey to ensure that the collection of data under that program and the BTOS remain complementary and not duplicative.
Minimizing Burden
On average, the Census Bureau estimates the BTOS will take 8 minutes or less to complete. The BTOS will use the following methods to minimize respondent burden:
Respondents will receive a letter or email invitation with a direct link to complete the survey.
The collection instrument will be optimized for electronic response, including the option to respond from a mobile device.
Most of the questions are qualitative, with checkbox responses to limit burden and maximize response.
Generally, questions will not require accessing business records.
A large panel sample will be split over 12 weeks so that businesses only receive one survey request every twelve weeks. Each panel sample will only be used for up to one year (52 or 53 weeks), so businesses will receive a survey request four or five times per year while in sample.
Consequences of Less Frequent Collection
The ongoing bi-weekly data collection of the BTOS provides important measures of economic trends, business expectations, inflection points in the business cycle, and impacts of economic and other emergencies. Ongoing bi-weekly collection is necessary to ensure economic changes are captured in near real time while providing important continuous data that provides context for changes.
Special Circumstances
There are no special circumstances.
Consultations Outside the Agency
The Census Bureau developed the BTOS content after consultation with staffs at other federal agencies about the usefulness of SBPS data products. An email was sent to Administration for Children and Families, Department of Housing and Human Services; the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA); the Bureau of Labor Statistics; the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS); the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB); the International Trade Administration; the Minority Business Development Agency; the Office of Tax Analysis, Department of Treasury; and the Small Business Administration (SBA). The inquiry asked: which SBPS concepts were useful; which concepts rotated off the SBPS but would have been useful across all phases; what useful concepts were not collected on the SBPS; and whether a scope expansion to include large employers, non-employers, or MU businesses would be helpful. The inquiry also asked which data product detail was of greater importance, additional geographic or industry detail. The Census Bureau received responses from the SBA, the FRB, the BTS, and the BEA.
The Census Bureau published a Federal Register notice on November 9, 2021 (86 FR, pg.62150-62151) inviting comment on plans to request approval for the BTOS. The Census Bureau has not received comments in response to the notice.
Paying Respondents
The Census Bureau will not pay or offer gifts to BTOS respondents.
Assurance of Confidentiality
The information collected in this survey is confidential under Title 13, United States Code, Section 9. Respondents are informed in the initial email and letter that responses are confidential, and their responses are voluntary.
Justification for Sensitive Questions
The Census Bureau does not deem any content to be of a sensitive nature.
Estimate of Hour Burden
The first time each biweekly panel is in sample ‘cycle', businesses are contacted either by email or letter with an invitation to respond to the survey. For the first cycle, initial letters are sent on the Friday before the 2-week period while initial emails are sent on the first Monday of the 2-week period. Starting with the second cycle, businesses are contacted only by email with an invitation to respond to the survey. Both letter and email invitations describe the purpose of the survey collection, include the link to the online reporting tool, and contain the access code.
The Census Bureau will be contacting approximately 200,000 respondents every two weeks via email and mail for the first cycle of BTOS and anticipates receiving approximately 33,000 responses. For the second through fourth cycle, the Census Bureau will be contacting approximately 100,000 respondents every two weeks and anticipates receiving approximately 28,000 responses; this estimate of responses is based on an average response rate from the BTOS. Burden hours calculations are based on the number of anticipated responses per two weeks, not the total number of respondents contacted.
The Census Bureau estimates that for the average respondent the core and supplemental questions will take approximately 8 minutes to complete, including the time for reviewing the instructions and answers. The estimate of 8 minutes is based on an analysis of data from the Centurion collection system from the first year of BTOS data collection and cognitive testing staff. The table below reflects the burden for the core and supplemental questions.
Therefore, the total annualized max burden estimate for the BTOS is 114,400 (33,000 (responses in two weeks) x 26 (two-week periods/year) x .1333 hours = 114,400 hours/year). The estimate of total annualized cost of the respondents’ time to complete this survey is $3,935,360 (114,400 hours x $34.40 per hour).
Approx. bi-weekly Responses |
Approx. total annual Responses |
Max Time Per Response |
Max Annual Burden |
33,000 |
858,000 |
8 min. |
114,400 |
Estimate of Cost Burden
The Census Bureau does not expect respondents to incur any costs other than those associated with the time to respond. The information requested is of the type and scope normally known by respondents.
Cost to Federal Government
The annualized government cost for the BTOS is approximately $2,230,000 which will be paid from Census Bureau appropriations FY23 budget initiative. This cost may change if efficiencies are developed or improvements are made such as the addition of or changes to content, collection and processing infrastructure, security requirements, or dissemination tools.
Reason for Change in Burden
The net decrease in burden is a result of increasing the burden estimate to 8 minutes per questionnaire and reducing the number of expected responses based on our experience in the first year BTOS.
Project Milestones
Project milestones are contingent upon OMB approval.
Milestone |
Planned Completion Date |
|
Complete Draft Sample |
July 2023 |
|
Complete Cognitive Testing |
July 2023 |
|
Send Approval Request Submitted to OMB |
July 2023 |
|
Finalize methodology, collection, and data products plan for single unit (SU) and multi-unit establishments (MU) |
August 2023 |
|
Launch data collection for BTOS (SU/MU) |
September 2023 |
|
Publish data products for BTOS (SU/MU) |
Fall 2023 |
|
Request Not to Display Expiration Date
The assigned expiration date is included on the collection instrument.
Exceptions to the Certification
There are no exceptions to the certification
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