NWX-US DEPT OF COMMERCE (US) 

Moderator: Robin Wyvill 

10-11-12/12:00 pm CT 

Confirmation # 2955224 

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NWX-US DEPT OF COMMERCE (US) 

Moderator: Robin Wyvill 

October 12, 2012 

12:00 pm CT 

Coordinator: Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time all participants will be in 

a listen only mode until the question and answer session. To ask a question at 

that time please press star 1, unmute your phone and record your name when 

prompted. If you're with the media please also state your media affiliation. 

Today's conference is being recorded if you have any objections you may 

disconnect at this time. And now I'd like to turn the meeting over to Mr. 

Michael Cook. 

Michael Cook: Good morning everyone I'd like to thank you for joining us today for our first 

series of webinars on the 2012 Economic Census. I am Michael Cook in the 

Public Information Office, and today we have with us members from our 

economic side of the house. But before we begin, and I turn it over to Mr. 

Chuck Brady, Chief of the Customer and Responded Outreach Team, I 

wanted to remind everyone that after today's presentation we will have a Q&A 

session. And during that Q&A session we ask that media do note your 

affiliation, and for privacy concerns or privacy matters, we don't necessarily 

need to have business owners identifying their business, as stated earlier. 
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So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Chuck and he'll introduce his team. 

Chuck Brady: Thanks Michael. Good afternoon and good morning for our West Coast 

attendees. My name is Chuck Brady of the Census Bureau's Economic 

Planning and Coordination Division. 

I'd like to welcome everyone every one listening in on the phones and 

following the webinar on their computers for the first in a series of webinars 

on the 2012 Economic Census. 

The Census Bureau's mission is to measure the nation's people, place and 

economy, and one of the key measures of our economy is the economic 

census. Our presenters today are Kari Klinedinst, a survey statistician on my 

team, and Andy Hait, our Data Products and Data User Liaison. 

Our presentation will last around 30 minutes and will followed by a question 

and answer session. We look forward to continuing this conversation with you 

and you can help keep the conversation going after the webinar by using 

#econcensus on Twitter. 

We're here today to talk with staff from trade associations, Chambers of 

Commerce, trade press and other Census Bureau partners and intermediaries 

about the upcoming 2012 economic census. 

Response to the economic census is required by law and forms are due on 

February 12, 2013. Our primary goal is to provide you with the information 

about the economic census that you need. As a trusted source of information 

for your members and readers, we hope that the material we provide today 

will help you be more informed about the census. 
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We look forward to gaining your support to reach out to your members and 

readers about the importance of the upcoming census and to encourage their 

prompt response. 

Like Michael stated earlier, we certainly encourage business owner who may 

have joined the webinar to stay, but we're planning to offer a webinar on 

January 2013 specifically targeted to the respondents to economic census. 

Information about this upcoming webinar will be available on 

business.census.gov/webinar soon. 

Our webinar today will be in four parts. First, Kari will speak briefly about 

what the economic census is and why it's important, not only to you but to 

your members and readers and to the U.S. as a whole. 

Then Andy will talk about the resources we're providing for the economic 

census. He'll cover our business.census.gov website, and how associations, 

Chambers of Commerce and other partners can use the information to help us 

promote response to the economic census, and how your efforts will benefit 

you. 

And finally, Michael from our Public Information Office will conclude the 

presentation part of the webinar, open the webinar up for questions and talk 

about our next steps. 

Now let me introduce Kari. 

Kari Klinedinst: Thank you Chuck. It's widely known the Census Bureau conducts a census of 

the U.S. population every ten years, but what is the economic census? The 

economic census is the federal government's official 5-Year measure of the 

U.S. economy and is done for the years ending in 2 and 7. It is part of the 
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Census Bureau's overall mission to measure not only the U.S. population, but 

also the U.S. economy. 

About 4.2 million employer businesses will receive a form for the 2012 

Economic Census. These forms cover businesses in nearly all industries and in 

all communities in the U.S. There are more than 500 unique versions of the 

form with each tailored to a specific industry to ensure that we are collecting 

information that is relevant and useful. 

However, there are over 7 million employer businesses in our country, so it's 

important to note that not every business with paid employees will get a form. 

Every large and mid-sized employer business will receive a form, but only 

sample of the smaller employer businesses will. 

In addition, the form for some businesses will go to the company's central 

office. So many of your members and readers may not actually see the form 

for their location. 

You may have noticed that I have been saying, "Employer businesses," this is 

because the more than 22 million self-employed persons and other businesses 

without paid employees in the U.S. are not sent forms in the economic census. 

Business will start receiving their forms at the beginning of November, with 

the majority of business getting them in December. And as Chuck mentioned 

before, businesses should complete and return that form by February 12, 2013. 

Extensions may be granted for businesses that need more time to report on a 

case-by-case basis. 
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Response to the economic census is required by Title 13 of the U.S. Code. It is 

that same law that protects the confidentiality of the data reported. We plan to 

publish results beginning in late 2013. 

Now you may be wondering, "Why is the economic census so important to be 

and my members or readers?" Response is important because data from the 

census are relied upon by a broad cross-section of users. State associations 

and Chambers of Commerce rely on statistics from the economic census to 

promote economic development in their industries and local areas. Many of 

these associations base their own economic analyses and surveys on this 

information as well. 

Business associations also rely on the economic census for strategic planning. 

Understanding where the industry has been and how it is comprised helps 

these organizations forecast and plan for where their industry is going in the 

future. 

Response to the economic census is also important because the resulting 

statistics are useful to businesses. Business owners can use the information 

and research to identify new markets for their products or services. It can also 

be used affect decisions to expand a business or to make capital 

improvements. 

We can also the statistics to compare the operating ratios for their business to 

the average operating ratios for all businesses. This can help identify 

opportunities for efficiency improvement. 

And entrepreneurs can use the data from the economic census in business 

plans as well as on loans applications with local banks and national small 

business lenders. 
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And finally, the economic census is important because it is a key component 

to having an accurate picture of the U.S. economy. The data collected from 

the foundation of a central federal and local economic report. 

For example, the Gross Domestic Product or GDP, relies heavily on this 

information. In addition, data from nearly every annual, quarterly and monthly 

economic program published by the Census Bureau, and many other 

organizations, are benchmarked to the economic census. 

Examples include the monthly economic indicators, such as the monthly retail 

sales and new residential construction reports that are collected by the Census 

Bureau and published by the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

These timely measures of economic activity would not exist without the 

comprehensive refresh of the list of all businesses in the U.S. provided by the 

economic census. 

Now I'm going to turn the presentation over to Andy who will talk about the 

materials and resources that are available to you for the economic census. 

Andy Hait: Thank you Kari. Let's now review the resources available to you and your 

members or readers. 

We have a wide variety of resources available that cover what the economic 

census is and why it is so important. One of these our new 

business.census.gov website provides a wealth of information about the 

economic census. 
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This site includes answers to the three questions we often here from 

businesses, "What is the economic census, why it's so important," and "How 

can I use the data?" 

The site follows a clean and simple approach to providing this information 

with graphics and images interspersed throughout. The site provides 

information that your association or organization can use, as well as 

information that your members or readers will find useful. We'll review these 

in the next few slides. 

Associations, organizations and other partnering groups can find a host of 

promotional and other materials on this site that they can use. These include 

sample articles, story ideas, fact sheets, talking points, print materials and 

widgets that can be placed on websites or in emails that link directly to this 

page. 

We frequently update this page so if you don't see what you need to reach out 

to your members or readers, just contact us and we'll see about providing it. 

We've also created special pages for some of our partnering organizations. 

These association pages like business.census.gov/franchising, contain 

materials tailored to their type of organization. One-stop shopping for their 

members. 

Finally, this site includes information on the estimated number of businesses 

who will be receiving forms this fall. The information is provided at the 

national level by economic sector, as well as by state, county and metro area. 

These number convey the impact of the economic census on your local area. 
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Businesses who expect to receive and economic census form can also use the 

information presented in this site. This includes facts about the census, key 

dates and FAQs. Your members or readers can learn about their business 

reporting options and soon will be able to view tutorial videos of how to use 

the reporting options. 

Business owners can also go here for tips on what they should do to prepare to 

report, and a detailed reporting checklist is coming soon. Links for sample 

forms for their industry are also provided. These can help the business 

confirm that the form that they received is in fact official, and provide a 

preview of the questions being asked. 

In speaking with businesses and associations we also learned that simple 

views of some selected data from the economic census can go a long way to 

illustrate the importance and value of the economic census. 

These simple views are presented in industry and local business snapshots, 

which are also available on the business.census.gov website. Pdf snapshots of 

selected industries are provided as well as links online snapshots for all 

industries. 

Local business snapshots are also available for all U.S. states and for select 

metro areas. Thematic snapshots are available on the individual association 

pages. These provide selected data for a group of industries. 

To make reporting as easy as possible another resource we offer is multiple 

report tool - multiple reporting option to the census. New for 2012 is an online 

tool, direct Internet reporting that single location businesses can use to 

complete their census form. This tool compliments the downloadable surveyor 
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software that we are offering again in 2012 for larger multiple location 

companies. 

Of course we are still offering the traditional paper forms for businesses who 

prefer to complete their forms this way. The paper form will include the 

business' user name and password if they decide to complete the form online. 

Businesses who receive a form can get help with reporting on another 

resource we offer, the Business Help site. Contact information for this site is 

provided in the top left of every economic census form and links to this site 

are provided on the business.census.gov website and elsewhere on census.gov. 

This site will include information about the 2012 economic census starting in 

late October to coincide with the mail out of the census forms. 

Associations and organizations can also contact Chuck's office at 

econ@census.gov or at the phone number shown on the slide, with questions 

about the information provided on business.census.gov as well as other 

general questions. 

Finally, many of your member companies or readers may have already heard 

from us via our Company Contact Program to get the word out that the census 

is coming. 

Census account managers have contacted over 1,600 of the country's largest 

companies to offer individual assistance, including helping them make the 

most of our electronic reporting tools. These companies together have nearly 

900,000 locations in the U.S. 

We have also sent advanced information about the economic census to 

another 178,000 companies with multiple locations. Of course, that still leaves 
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millions of businesses who won't hear from us directly until the form arrives 

on their desk in November or December. This is where we rely on help from 

associations and publications like yours to get the word out. 

Our efforts to help promote response to the economic census began over a 

year ago with our outreach activities with trade associations, Chambers of 

Commerce and other organizations. 

Business associations like the International Franchise Association and the 

National Restaurant Association have partnered with us to get the word out to 

their member businesses about the importance of the economic census to their 

organizations. 

We are also working with organizations like the Association of Small 

Business Development Centers to reach out to their business counselors, work 

with entrepreneurs who look to them for guidance. 

Organizations like yours can use the wealth of information provided on the 

business.census.gov website to learn more about the economic census. The 

widgets provided can be used to direct your members and readers on to 

business.census.gov. The story ideas and other materials on the website can be 

used in articles, in your newsletters and magazines and on your organization's 

website. 

These materials can also be used in the emails that you send out to your 

members and the blogs you post on your sites. Business owners rely on these 

communications as source of information for their business. 

Finally, your members or readers can use the information provided on this 

site. They can preview their forms, learn about their reporting options, read 
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tips on how to report. They can also visit the Business Help site, where they 

can learn more about the reporting tools and will be able to actually complete 

their form. 

Finally, using the information presented in the snapshots and in the How-To 

User Guide, they can learn how they can use the data to better understand 

their industry and community, and to grow their business. 

I'll now be turning the presentation over to Mike, who will be closing out the 

webinar and bringing in our questions. I would encourage attendees to check 

out business.census.gov and to view some of the videos that we have loaded 

on the site, including a montage video from U.S. government governors. 

Michael Cook: Thank you Andy. Operator, we're ready for questions. 

Coordinator: Thank you. And again, to ask a question please press star 1, unmute your 

phone and record your name when prompted. If you're with the media, please 

also state your affiliation. To withdraw your request you may press star 2. 

And once again, to ask a question please press star 1. 

One moment for the first question please. 

Michael Cook: And while everyone is making themselves ready in the queue for their 

questions, I just wanted to remind everyone that we have a new mobile app 

here at the Census Bureau available, that provides statistics from 16 key 

economic indicators. 

The indicators are from the Census Bureau, as I stated, also the Bureau of 

Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It available for both 
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Android and Apple devices and you can visit www.census.gov/mobile for 

more information and to download the app. 

Operator do we have any questions in the queue? 

Coordinator: I currently show one question and it is from Ken Wedeen with Somer State 

County Planning Board. Your line is open. 

Michael Cook: Hi Ken. 

Ken Wedeen: Yes, hi. I'd like to know when we'll - economic census data at the county level 

for industries be available? I know the initial start date or the initial release 

date is December, 2013. 

Andy Hait: This is Andy. As you just said, the release of our data will begin in December 

of 2013, the first set of data releases that we will have will all be shown at the 

national level only, but we will begin to release data at the local area level 

starting in fall of 2014. Probably around November or so is when you'll 

actually start to see local area data released. The data will flow out over about 

a nine month timeframe, being released by state and by sector. 

Ken Wedeen: Thank you. 

Andy Hait: You're welcome. 

Coordinator: Again, to ask a question please press star 1. And the next question is from 

(Michael Harmon). 
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(Michael Harmon): Yes, hello. Terrific webinar, I really appreciate the work you are all doing. 

Unfortunately I started the webinar a little bit late, is it going to be possible to 

download the PowerPoints or the presentation after this? 

Chuck Brady: Yes, this is Chuck. We're going to have the webinar available on our website 

almost immediately. 

Michael Cook: Twenty-four hours. 

Chuck Brady: Twenty-four hours. 

(Michael Harmon): And that... 

Chuck Brady: Twenty-four hours. 

(Michael Harmon): Business.census.gov? 

Chuck Brady: Yes. 

(Michael Harmon): Thank you. 

Chuck Brady: You're welcome. 

Michael Cook: And also for those listening in, the last caller just wanted to note that if you do 

visit census.gov, our homepage, if you look at the slide image, in that slide 

image you will see an image advertising today's webinar. If you click on that 

that takes you to our electronic press kit for today's media event. 

And in that electronic press kit you can currently see the slide that were 

presented today, but within 24 hours we will actually have up an archived 
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version of this webinar so you'll get the slides plus all of the audio that's being 

played today. 

Coordinator: Next question is from (Robert Kepler). 

(Robert Kepler): Hi, thanks for this webinar. I just want to ask, "What are the criteria that 

determines whether you are a small, mid-size or large company or 

organization?" 

Chuck Brady: Sure yes, I'll take that one. We don't internally determine - we don't really say, 

"You're large, medium or small business, except for just in describing like we 

did today." 

But for any business, we said, "Small businesses," I guess really we we're 

talking more about single unit establishments. So businesses with one 

location. And in those cases, we sample among those single unit businesses so 

that the smallest of those business, in a lot of cases, are not included in the 

economic census. 

(Robert Kepler): So if a blood center has one location then they would be possibly part of the 

sample? 

Chuck Brady: Yes. 

(Robert Kepler): Okay. Thank you. 

Chuck Brady: You're welcome. 

Coordinator: I show no other questions at this time. 
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Michael Cook: Okay, well we'll give folks one last bite of the apple before we close, but I just 

wanted to remind everybody of what was discussed earlier. This is, as 

mentioned before, our first series in a webinar series highlighting the 

economic census. 

We do plan to have tentatively scheduled our next webinar to be in midJanuary. And also today's webinar will be archived on our website. We 

encourage to visit business.census.gov for additional information and follow 

this conversation and to discuss this conversation with social media by using 

#econcensus as well as visiting econhelp.census.gov for help with responding. 

And for any media that are on the call I encourage you to contact the Public 

Information Office at 301-763-3030 for your inquiries and interview requests. 

Operator, are there any other calls in the queue? 

Coordinator: We currently have about five questions standing by. And the next question 

will come (Bill McQue). 

(Bill McQue): Good morning this is Bill McQue. Quick question, "If the smaller businesses 

are not getting the forms sent to them, how do they request the form to fill out 

the economic census form? 

Chuck Brady: If they don't receive a form, then they would not be in the sample. If they don't 

receive a form. So we're really not recommending that businesses that don't 

receive a form call us back to request one, because they're most likely just 

didn't make it into the sample. 

(Bill McQue): Okay, are any small businesses in the sample in the construction industry 

many of the subcontracting businesses are small family businesses and if none 

of them are in there they would not have - be showing up on the radar screen. 
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Man: Okay. 

Andy Hait: This is Andy. So when you're talking about the construction sector, we kind of 

think of construction in two major segments. The small independent 

contractors that you're speaking of would traditionally be thought of by us as 

non-employers, as Kari was commenting, the economic census only covers 

employer businesses in the U.S., so those small non-employer establishments 

would then not actually be counted as part of the economic census. 

They are measured in a separate program we conduct here at Census called 

the Non-Employer Statistics Program, but they're not actually measured as 

part of the economic census. 

(Bill McQue): Thank you for that answer. That was not what I was looking for, independent 

contractor is a different program, these are subcontracting companies that 

work for general contractors and building owners, your favorite roofing 

contractor, your favorite drywall contractor, many of those companies might 

not fly on top of your radar. They may be smaller and employers, both. 

Andy Hait: Right. Of the employer businesses that would get mailed a form for the 

economic census we do have a cut-off that we apply to determine what is 

considered small, that cutoff does vary quite a bit from industry to industry. 

Where some industries the cutoff maybe five employees, a business has fewer 

than five employees, it probably wouldn't be selected for the sample. Other 

industries the cutoff is different from that. So for these subcontractors, as 

you're referring to, it would depend upon the number of employees that they 

would have in that business or other criteria to determine whether or not they 

were in fact selected for the economic census sample. 
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As we mentioned during the presentation we only are mailing about 4.2 

million forms this fall, of the 7 million or so businesses, employer businesses 

in the U.S. So the difference of course, are those smaller businesses that don't 

- that won’t get mailed a separate form from us, but are measured separately. 

(Robert Kepler): Thank you. Only suggestion is to think of the construction industry maybe a 

little bit differently than some other industries in its size of employers. Glad to 

hear that it reaches down to as small as some five employee companies. 

Andy Hait: Absolutely. 

(Robert Kepler): Thank you. 

Andy Hait: Thank you. 

Coordinator: (Roger Green). 

(Roger Green): Yes. I'm from one of the SBDCs and I was curious if there's any specific 

packaging for our program on your site? I've been starting to look there, but I 

haven't seen it yet, small business development centers. 

Chuck Brady: Sure Mr. (Green), Chuck Brady here. We do have information on 

business.census.gov for small businesses. It is - it can be reached at 

business.census.gov/smallbiz, S-M-A-L-L-B-I-Z. 

When you're there you can find content directed for - directly targeting small 

business development centers, for instance, to help you get the word out to 

your small businesses. 
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(Roger Green): Okay, very good. Thank you. 

Chuck Brady: You're welcome. 

Coordinator: (Michael Harmon). 

(Michael Harmon): Yes. Thank you very much. Two-parter please. Is the sample size for the 

distribution of this available, and is there a fact then for the methodology on 

that website? And is it similar to the ACS? And then finally, data for 

metropolitan areas, when will that be available? 

Andy Hait: Okay, I'll follow - I'll address it to the two-part question. I'll do the kind of 

easy one first. Metropolitan area data are actually being released along with 

all of the other local area data that we release. 

So when we start releasing information at the state level you will also get the 

data for the counties, for cities and towns, for metropolitan areas, and for a lot 

of other levels of geography. So it's released all in that same package. 

Metropolitan areas give us some challenges just simply because they're so 

large and they cross state boundaries often, so we do have some bundling we 

have to do with states to release the metropolitan areas, but yes, they are 

released along with the other subnational level data. 

(Michael Harmon): November of 2014. 

Andy Hait: Right, exactly. As for the methodology, we do have methodology text that is 

available in a number of places. When we release our data files, there's 

actually methodology information that's provided along with those data files. 

We also have methodology information available on our economic census 
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website that talks about the sampling of the establishments to create these 

sample sizes. How a sample is drawn. 

I don't believe we actually publish in those methodology reports the physical, 

the actual cutoff, for what is defined as small versus medium and large, 

because they do vary so much from industry to industry that we don't actually 

publish those. 

But the methodology does talk about how we create this stratified random 

sample, and how we select establishments to be part of the - businesses to be 

part of the sample. 

One point I guess I'll make on that note too is, when you have a business, a 

company, that has multiple establishments it is possible for that business to 

have all of their establishments within their company be mailed a form or 

even a select - or even a sample of those. 

So if they have some smaller businesses that they may not get a form for, 

whereas other businesses in their same - under their same company, would in 

fact get a form. 

So pretty much what we've been telling people is, "Look for form starting in 

November, ending in December. If you haven't received it then the chances 

are you probably weren't selected for the sample." 

(Michael Harmon): So will it be able to tell people how many businesses were sent the forms 

in our county, for example? 

Andy Hait: Absolutely. On that website that I was talking about, one the 

business.census.gov website, there are accounts of the number of businesses at 
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the national level, state level, county level and metropolitan area level that 

will tell you that Anne Arundell County Maryland is going to get X number of 

thousands of forms for businesses there, so yes, absolutely. 

(Michael Harmon): Business.census.gov? 

Andy Hait: Yes, you're very welcome. 

Coordinator: Next question is from (Adam Shoski). 

(Adam Shoski): Hi, thank you for the webinar. Actually I think my question was basically 

answered in the last question. I was just wondering as a data user, how far 

down you could drill down geographically with the data? I think you 

mentioned already, cities and towns? 

Andy Hait: Yes, the finest level of geography that we go down to is at the town - city and 

town level, what we call, Economic places. We do have some selected data 

files available at the zip code level. 

But the challenge with the zip code data sets is that, you can imagine, when 

you slice and dice the data to individual zip codes you could end up with a 

very few number of businesses in a particular zip code in a particular industry. 

And our privacy laws would prohibit us from releasing that data. 

So at the zip code level all you're really even going to see are data on the 

number of businesses in that zip code, there's not going to be any information 

on employment or payroll or sales or other kinds of statistics like that. But 

yes, we - the finest we go down to is the place - what we call the economic 

place level. 
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(Adam Shoski): All right, great. Thank you very much. 

Andy Hait: You're welcome. 

Coordinator: The last question comes from (Ralph). 

Michael Cook: Hi (Ralph). 

(Ralph): Hello, hi. Thank you for conducting the survey, I mean conducting the 

webinar. We were just curious as to how the Economic Census Program - how 

do they know whom to mail these surveys to? What that source for the 

company's address and contact information? 

We're assuming it's tax filings, so basically the question is, "How do you all 

know who to send it to, the addresses and that sort?" And, "Is that data 

available to the public?" 

Andy Hait: Okay, this is Andy again. The master database if you will, that we maintain 

that has a complete list of every known business in the United States is 

maintained via a couple of ways. 

First, obviously in the conducting of the economic census and the surveys we 

find out from businesses that they have started a new location, they've closed 

a location, et cetera. So we are constantly maintaining this database through 

our own survey programs to keep the complete list of all businesses up to 

date. 

We also get monthly updates from other federal agencies that allow us to 

make sure we have a complete list of every known business in the United 

States, and we update that database using those - using that information. 
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The information that we put in this thing called, the Business Register, is for 

census use only. We do not disseminate that information either publically, as 

you were asking, so no, you can't the Census Bureau and say, "Can you send 

me a list of every business in the United States?" 

We don't release that data, nor do we even share that data with other agencies 

in terms of going back the other direction. So making sure we have a complete 

inventory of every business is really critical to us being able to conduct an 

accurate economic census. 

(Ralph): Okay. Thank you. 

Andy Hait: You're welcome. 

Michael Cook: Any other questions operator? 

Coordinator: Yes, we did get two other questions. And the next question is from 

(MacKenzie). 

(MacKenzie): My question was just - you mentioned that there is the Non-Employer Statistic 

Survey, and I was hoping you could tell us a little bit more about that, as far as 

getting information about small businesses? 

Andy Hait: Okay. I'll take that one again. So we conduct an annual program called the 

Non-Employer Statistics Program. The most recent data we have available 

right now is from the 2010 Non-Employer Statistics Program. 

We collect that information, we tabulate that data actually from administrative 

information that we get from other federal agencies. So we don't actually 
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physically conduct a survey of these non-employer businesses, we pull data 

from other agencies and then analyze it, tabulate it and release it that way. 

That gives us the ability to publish that detailed data. 

Non-employers, we publish data on number over businesses and the revenue 

of those non-employer businesses. They are broken out down to the national, 

state, county and zip code level. We don't actually have place level data from 

the Non-Employer Statistics Program, it's just at the - at down to the county 

level as the finest level of detail. 

(MacKenzie): Okay, thank you. 

Andy Hait: You're welcome. 

Coordinator: Our last question is from (Bob Coates). 

(Bob Coates): Hi. Thanks for the webinar. I just wanted to clarify two points for my own 

benefit. When you talk about releasing information below the state level to the 

county and economic place level, that's going to be part of the geographic area 

series and that's going to be released after the initial national release, is that 

correct? 

Andy Hait: That is correct. 

(Bob Coates): Okay, also when say, "Economic place," for those of us that work with the 

American Community Survey data and with the decennial data, could you 

briefly just cover what the difference is between the economic place and an 

ordinary place? 
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Andy Hait: I'm sort of the geo nut in our office, so I'll take that one again too. An 

economic place is sort of a hybrid of the various different types of places that 

are recognized in a demographic area. 

That hybrid would include incorporated cities, it would include Census 

designated places and we also include something that we call, the Balance of 

County, which is essentially the difference between the entire county and the 

other places that we physically recognize. 

So within a particular county you'll have the incorporated cities, you will have 

the unincorporated areas, the Census designated places, and you will also then 

have this balance of record. 

For the Northeastern - primarily Northeastern states that are dominated by 

townships, we do publish data for minor civil division, for tiny subdivision, so 

those are the levels of geography that we call economic place for those 12, 

primarily Northeastern states. Also for example, for Pennsylvania, we publish 

the data for the townships, not the boroughs in the towns. So it's kind of a 

hybrid. 

The last issue or the last kind of issue with the hybrid is even of all of those 

incorporated cities versus (sets of) designated places, we do use a population 

and jobs cutoff to determine what is the minimum criteria to qualify if you 

will, to be an economic place. 

For 2007 that criteria was 5,000 population or 5,000 jobs, but for 2012 we're 

actually cutting that cutoff from 5,000 down to 2,500. That's going to be 

resulting in us publishing data for the first time for about 5,000 cities and 

towns that we previously had not separately published. The data for those 

smaller areas were included in that balance of county data for that county. So 
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we're really looking forward to seeing a lot more local area data because of 

changing that cutoff from 5,000 down to 2,500. 

(Bob Coates): Great, thank you. 

Andy Hait: You're welcome. 

Michael Cook: Do we have another caller operator? 

Coordinator: You do have another question from (Sandy). Your line is open. 

(Sandy): Yes, from the viewpoint of the lodging industry, will you be sending this - the 

census to major corporate and management companies, or will you send it to, 

for example, just throwing out there, a Marriott corporate office or individual 

Marriotts and their brands? 

Kari Klinedinst: We will be doing, it's actually a mix a both. As I talked about, this is Kari, as I 

talked about during my presentation each industry has a specific type of form. 

So if a company is a management company, they would get a form tailored for 

a management company. If there is an actual hotel location, they get a form 

for the hotel. 

(Sandy): All right, thank you very much. 

Coordinator: There are no other questions at this time. 

Michael Cook: Great. Well I'd like to - before we close I'd like to thank Charles, Kari and 

Andy for making themselves available for us today. I know that this is a very 

important webinar and we look forward to having further discussion about the 
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economic census. But I want to make sure that everybody understands exactly 

who to contact for more information. 

Requests for information from the media should be directed to our Public 

Information Office at 301-763-3030, and then requests from associations and 

other organizations should direct their questions directly the Customer and 

Respondent Outreach Branch by dialing 1-877-790-1876 or emailing them at 

econ@census.gov. And as noted throughout this presentation, 

business.census.gov is your gateway to information on the economic census. 

In closing I'd like to encourage everyone to attend our next webinar which is 

tentatively scheduled for mid-January. And also wanted to make sure that you 

continue the conversation and follow the conversation online with social 

media by using #econcensus.gov. 

If there are no other questions from anyone on the phone, with that I'd like to 

close today's presentation. I'll check with the operator to see if there's any 

more questions, operator? 

Coordinator: I show no questions. 

Michael Cook: Thank you. I'd like to thank you for your time as well. With that let me thank 

everyone for participating on the phones and following along online. And 

closing today's event. Thanks everyone. 

END