The glossary below may define terms not included in the main Glossary on census.gov

The main Glossary on census.gov provides official definitions covering all topics, censuses, surveys and programs.

To begin a search, enter a term or acronym in the search bar or click the letter to see all the terms that begin with that letter. Click view to see the definition for a term. You may select one or more terms to place them in the Selected Terms box for downloading or printing. Click on Printable View to preview the page.

Did you know you can embed the Glossary Widget? Just click on the embed icon </>, copy the code and paste it into your website.

• Annual Payroll
• Employment
• Establishment
• Ethnicity
• Firm
• Gender
• Mid-March Employment
• The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
• Race
• Veteran Status

Dollar Values

All dollar values presented in the ABS reports are expressed in current dollars, i.e., 2017 data are expressed in 2017. Consequently, when making comparisons to prior years, data users should take inflation into consideration.

Employment Size Class

Represents the employment size categories of firms:

• Firms with no employees
• Firms with 1 to 4 employees
• Firms with 5 to 9 employees
• Firms with 10 to 19 employees
• Firms with 20 to 49 employees
• Firms with 50 to 99 employees
• Firms with 100 to 499 employees
• Firms with 500 employees or more

Noise Infusion

A method of disclosure avoidance in which values are perturbed prior to tabulation by applying a random noise multiplier to the magnitude data, such as the sales and receipts for all firms. Disclosure protection is accomplished in a manner that causes the vast majority of cell values to be perturbed by, at most, a few percentage points. For sample-based tabulations, such as ABS, the estimated relative standard error for a published cell includes both the estimated sampling error and the amount of perturbation in the estimated cell value due to noise.

Receipts

Includes the total sales, shipments, receipts, revenue, or business done by domestic establishments (excludes foreign subsidiaries) within the scope of the Survey of Business Owners.

Receipts Size Class

Represents the sales/receipts/revenue size categories of firms:

• Firms with sales/receipts of less than $5,000
• Firms with sales/receipts of $5,000 to $9,999
• Firms with sales/receipts of $10,000 to $24,999
• Firms with sales/receipts of $25,000 to $49,999
• Firms with sales/receipts of $50,000 to $99,999
• Firms with sales/receipts of $100,000 to $249,999
• Firms with sales/receipts of $250,000 to $499,999
• Firms with sales/receipts of $500,000 to $999,999
• Firms with sales/receipts of $1,000,000 or more

Unclassifiable

Publicly held and other firms not classifiable by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status companies include:

• Publicly held. Includes corporate enterprises owned by many shareholders who hold a collective interest in the equity of the company in the form of shares of stock. Capital may be raised by selling ownership shares to the general public.
• Foreign-owned. Includes U.S. corporations controlled or owned by any foreign entity directly or indirectly, based on 50 percent or more of a U.S. corporation's voting stock at the end of the tax year.
• Not for profit. Establishments that indicated that all or part of their income was exempt from federal income tax under provisions of Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code.

[Note: Publicly held and other firms not classifiable by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status data are tabulated separately in the ethnicity, race, and veteran status fields. As the result of these tabulations and the timing of the data releases, these estimates may not always be equal when comparing SBO data files.]