High Frequency Business Survey Highlights Trends in the U.S. Economy

In April 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau launched two new surveys, the Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS) and the Household Pulse Survey, to produce near real-time data on the challenges small businesses and households were facing due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Two years of data collection has demonstrated the value of the pulse surveys to a vast set of stakeholders including policymakers, state and local governments, nonprofit and trade organizations, businesses, academia, and the public. The Census Bureau will continue to produce high frequency, detailed, near real-time data for businesses beginning mid-August 2022 under the new Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS). The BTOS will build on the success of the SBPS, using similar methodology to capture key economic data in near real time as well as expectations about future business conditions. BTOS will produce biweekly estimates on a continuous basis, initially for all single-location employer businesses in the 50 states, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico which are the same geographies included in SBPS.