An ad hoc panel will review the design, operations, and products of the U.S. Census Bureau’s suite of annual economic surveys of retail trade, manufactures, wholesale trade, services, and other economic activities with the goal to better answer questions about the evolving economy. The panel will recommend short-term and longer term agendas for systemic change that can improve the relevance and accuracy of the data, reduce respondent burden, incorporate alternative sources of data where appropriate, and streamline and standardize Census Bureau processes and methods across surveys. This will include advice on approaches to harmonize and simplify the design and production process for these annual economic surveys. The panel also will consider the alignment of the annual programs with each other, with the indicator programs, and with the economic census programs with the goal of improving data coherence.
Areas for the panel to consider include survey content (including data gaps and redundancies), the definition of the universe and unit of data collection (e.g., firm, establishment), the sampling frame, sample design, questionnaire design, data collection procedures, data processing, and estimation. The panel is also asked to consider improvements in data products of value to users with respect to accuracy, relevance, frequency, timeliness, and geographic detail, including the production of subnational estimates that can be related to demographic and socioeconomic data.
The panel will gather information, deliberate, and prepare a final report with its findings and recommendations at the end of a 36-month time period.