Comparability to the Annual Business Survey (ABS), the Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D) series, and the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE)

The Annual Business Survey (ABS) is a new survey designed to combine several Census Bureau firm-level collections to reduce respondent burden, increase data quality, reduce operational costs, and operate more efficiently.  The ABS replaces the five-year Survey of Business Owners (SBO) for employer businesses, the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE), and the Business R&D and Innovation for Microbusinesses (BRDI-M) surveys. 

The Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics (NES-D) series augments the ABS, as a new annual data product that replaces the five-year SBO for nonemployer businesses, by providing similar information on the demographic characteristics of nonemployers.  NES-D provides more frequent and timely high-quality data at a lower cost than the SBO with no additional respondent burden.  The NES-D is not a survey; rather, it leverages existing individual-level administrative records to assign demographic characteristics to the universe of nonemployer businesses. Demographic characteristics including sex, ethnicity, race, veteran status, owner age, place of birth, and U.S. citizenship are assigned to nonemployer business owners.  NES-D data will be available annually by detailed geography and industry levels, receipt-size class, and legal form of organization (LFO).

The ABS and ASE sampled employer firms only, while the SBO sampled both employer firms and nonemployer firms.  Therefore, caution should be exercised in comparing the SBO estimates with published data from the ABS, the NES-D, the ASE, and other reports of the five-year economic censuses, for years ending in ‘‘2’’ and ‘‘7.’’