February 2, 2018
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy (Advocacy) submits the following comments in response to the U.S. Census Bureau’s proposed information collection, “Annual Business Survey (ABS).” Advocacy believes that timely business data is vital to understanding the state and needs of small businesses, and it is crucial for Advocacy in achieving its mandate to “examine the role of small businesses in the American economy.” Since these proposed changes in business data collection may lead to timelier and higher quality business data, Advocacy supports the Census Bureau’s development of the ABS. However, non-employer businesses, which are 80% of all small businesses, are excluded from the ABS. Advocacy recommends the Census Bureau continue to produce this critical data for non-employer businesses by an alternative method or additional information collection.
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