Business Trends and Outlook Survey, United States (ICPSR 38869)
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United States. Bureau of the Census
This is an external resource to which ICPSR links as a courtesy. These data are not available from ICPSR. Users should consult the data owners (via Business Trends and Outlook Survey, United States) directly for details on obtaining these resources.
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The U.S. Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), a survey that measures business conditions, provides insight into the state of the economy with data for key economic measures every two weeks. The continuous, timely nature of BTOS measures captures the impact of events like natural disasters and economic crises and assists in monitoring recovery efforts.
The BTOS is the successor to the Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS), a high-frequency survey that measured the effect of changing business conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, and other major events like hurricanes, on our nation's small businesses. BTOS increases the scope of the SBPS to include large single-location employer businesses (those with 500 or more employees).
Released biweekly and available by sector, state, and the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas, the BTOS offers real-time data to aid in policy and economic decision-making. BTOS data are representative of all single-location employer businesses in the U.S. economy, excluding farms, and include geographic and subsector detail. The sector and subsector commonly used to study arts-related businesses are Sector 71 (Arts and Entertainment) and Subsector 711 (Performing Arts, Spectator Sports, and Related Industries).
The BTOS sample consists of approximately 1.2 million businesses with biweekly data collection. Selected businesses are split into six panels (approximately 200,000 cases per panel) that will be asked to report every 12 weeks for a year.