Census Data: Economics

This program consists of two surveys—the quarterly Interview survey and the Diary survey—that provide information on the buying habits of American consumers, including data on their expenditures, income, and consumer unit (families and single consumers) characteristics.

This is an annual series that provides subnational economic data by industry. The series is useful for studying the economic activity of small areas; analyzing economic changes over time; and as a benchmark for statistical series, surveys, and databases between economic censuses. Businesses use the data for analyzing market potential, measuring the effectiveness of sales and advertising programs, setting sales quotas, and developing budgets. Government agencies use the data for administration and planning.

County Business Patterns covers most of the country's economic activity. The series excludes data on self-employed individuals, employees of private households, railroad employees, agricultural production employees, and most government employees. The County Business Patterns program has tabulated on a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) basis since 1998.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), enacted by Congress in 1975 and implemented by the Federal Reserve Board's Regulation C, requires lending institutions to report public loan data. In this section of the web site, you can find out more about the regulation and it's interpretation.

Estimates are created for school districts, counties, and states. The main objective of this program is to provide updated estimates of income and poverty statistics for the administration of federal programs and the allocation of federal funds to local jurisdictions. Estimates for 2006 and 2007 were released in December 2008. Beginning with the estimates for 2005, data from the American Community Survey are used in the estimation procedure; all prior year estimates used data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplements of the Current Population Survey.

The survey design is a continuous series of national panels, with sample size ranging from approximately 14,000 to 36,700 interviewed households. The duration of each panel ranges from 2 1/2 years to 4 years. SIPP collects source and amount of income, labor force information, program participation and eligibility data, and general demographic characteristics to measure the effectiveness of existing federal, state, and local programs; to estimate future costs and coverage for government programs, such as food stamps; and to provide improved statistics on the distribution of income in the country.

The SPD survey measures: program eligibility and participation for the full range of welfare programs; money income, in-kind benefits, and services received from programs; employment, earned income, and income from other economic sources; family composition; and child outcomes including key features of the environments of children (because reforms may have positive or negative consequences for children through these intervening mechanisms.