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Public Information Office CB99-104
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Kirk Degler/John Kern
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Census Bureau Issues First State Report, Covering Wyoming,
on Health Care, Social Assistance Industries
from 1997 Economic Census
The Commerce Department's Census Bureau today released the first in a
series of state reports on the Health Care and Social Assistance sector of
the economy from the 1997 Economic Census.
The report, 1997 Economic Census, Geographic Area Series,
Health Care and Social Assistance: Wyoming, which was released on the
Internet, presents separate data for firms subject to, and exempt from,
federal income taxes. It provides metropolitan area, county and place data
for taxable firms, as well as metropolitan area data for tax-exempt firms.
Reports covering this sector for the remaining states will follow
throughout 1999.
Among the report's findings for 1997:
- Wyoming's 355 physicians' offices generated receipts of $217.4
million, accounting for the largest share (more than 40 percent) of the
$493.6 million in receipts for taxable firms in the Health Care and Social
Assistance sector of the state's economy.
- Cheyenne ($55.3 million), Casper ($36.3 million) and Jackson ($19.5
million) collectively accounted for more than half of Wyoming's receipts
by physicians' offices. Statewide, physicians' offices employed 2,283
people.
- Physical and occupational therapists, a new industry classification,
had receipts of $7.5 million and employed 179 people at 27 locations
statewide.
- Overall, Wyoming's taxable health care and social assistance firms
employed 7,875 workers at 1,006 locations.
- The state's tax-exempt health care and social assistance firms
operated out of 350 locations, generated $695.9 million in revenues and
employed 15,091 workers. Hospitals contributed about three-quarters of the
revenues ($523.2 million) and more than half the workers (8,210).
The 1997 Economic Census marks the premiere of a new classification
system called the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS),
which replaces the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system begun
60 years ago.
"The United States developed the system jointly with Canada and Mexico,
making it much easier to compare data with our North American Free Trade
Agreement partners," said Frederick Knickerbocker, the Census Bureau's
associate director for economic programs. "It is also much easier to
update, so that economic data can keep pace with the nation's changing
economy."
The Health Care and Social Assistance sector is new under NAICS. Most of
the SIC constituent industries were classified under either the "Health
Services" or "Social Services" major industry groups.
Data compiled for the Health Care and Social Assistance sector are
subject to nonsampling errors. Nonsampling errors can be attributed to
many sources: inability to identify all cases in the universe; definition
and classification difficulties; differences in the interpretation of
questions; errors in recording or coding the data obtained; and other
errors of collection, response, coverage, processing and estimation for
missing or misreported data.
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The U.S. Census Bureau, pre-eminent collector and disseminator of timely,
relevant and quality data about the people and the economy of the United
States, conducts a population and housing census every 10 years, an
economic census every five years and more than 100 demographic and
economic surveys every year, all of them evolving from the first census in
1790.
