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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 25 / Tuesday, February 9, 2021 / Notices
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau
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Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget OMB for Review and Approval; Comment Request; Annual Business Survey The Department of Commerce will submit the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget OMB for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information collection requirements and minimize the publics reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the Federal Register on July 6, 2020
during a 60-day comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.
Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
Title: Annual Business Survey.
OMB Control Number: 06071004.
Form Numbers: ABS1.
Type of Request: Regular submission, Request for a Revision of a Currently Approved Collection.
Number of Respondents: 308,000.
Average Hours per Response:
Employer Businesses52 minutes;
Nonprofits who are R&D performers3
hours; Nonprofits who are not R&D
performenrs20 minutes.
Burden Hours: 270,133.
Needs and Uses: In an effort to improve the measurement of business dynamics in the United States, the Census Bureau is conducting the Annual Business Survey ABS. The ABS combines Census Bureau firm-level collections to reduce respondent burden, increase data quality, reduce operational costs, and operate more efficiently. The ABS replaced the fiveyear Survey of Business Owners SBO
for employer businesses, the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs ASE, and the Business Research and Development R&D and Innovation for Microbusinesses BRDIM surveys. The ABS provides information on selected economic and demographic characteristics for businesses and business owners by sex, ethnicity, race, and veteran status. Further, the survey measures research and development for microbusinesses, new business topics such as innovation and technology, as well as other business characteristics.
The ABS is sponsored by the National
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Center for Science and Engineering Statistics NCSES within the National Science Foundation NSF and conducted by the Census Bureau for five years 20182022.
The ABS includes all nonfarm employer businesses filing Internal Revenue Service IRS tax forms as individual proprietorships, partnerships, or any other type of corporation, with receipts of $1,000 or more. The ABS samples approximately 300,000 employer businesses annually yielding summary-level estimates for women-, minority-, and veteran-owned businesses at the 2-digit NAICS, U.S., state, and metropolitan statistical area MSA levels. The Census Bureau uses administrative data to estimate the probability that a firm is minorityor women-owned. Each firm is then placed in one of nine frames for sampling. The sampling frames are: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, Black, or African American, Hispanic, NonHispanic White Men, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander, Other, Publicly Owned, and Women. The sample is stratified by state, industry, and frame. The Census Bureau selects some companies with certainty based on volume of sales, payroll, and number of paid employees or NAICS. All certainty cases are sure to be selected and represent only themselves.
Starting with survey year 2021, the ABS sample will include an additional 8,000 respondents to collect research activities from nonprofit organizations.
Historically, nonprofit organizations were in scope to the ABS, however, they were not mailed because the survey does not expect nonprofit organizations to be classifiable by sex, ethnicity, race, or veteran status. To include the nonprofit organizations, the sample size will increase to approximately 308,000
300,000 employer businesses + 8,000
nonprofit organizations. Of note, nonprofit organizations will only see questions relating to research activities and will not be asked any questions relating to owner demographics. The questions were adopted from the 2016
Nonprofit Research ActivitiesNPRA
Survey which collected information about research activities at nonprofit organizations. Based on estimates from that survey, the estimated burden for R&D performers is 3 hours. This includes the time it will take to gather materials prior to reporting and responding to the survey. For nonprofit organizations that are not R&D
performers and therefore will not answer all the questions, the estimated burden is 20 minutes.
Employer businesses will be asked questions about the sex, ethnicity, race,
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and veteran status for up to four persons owning the majority of rights, equity, or interest in the business Section B of the questionnaire. Organizations sampled as nonprofits and respondents with 1
9 employees will be asked about research and development R&D
activities and related costs Sections C
and D of the questionnaire respectively.
Further, employer businesses sampled will be asked about the following topics:
Technology, Operations, and Innovation Section E of the questionnaire;
Financing Section F of the questionnaire; Management Practices Section G of the questionnaire; and Coronavirus Pandemic as related to R&D
Section H of the questionnaire.
The ABS is designed to allow for incorporating new content each survey year based on topics of relevance. Each year new questions will be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget OMB for approval.
New questions on the 2021 ABS
collect data on the following topics:
Research activities at nonprofit organizations Section C of the 2021
ABS questionnaire; technology, operations, and innovation Section E of the 2021 ABS questionnaire, financing Section F of the 2021 ABS
questionnaire, and management practices Section G of the of the 2021
ABS questionnaire. Within Sections F
and H of the questionnaire, several questions have been added to measure the impact of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic on business activity and R&D, respectively.
The ABS is primarily collected via an electronic instrument. Those selected for the survey receive an initial letter informing the respondents of their requirement to complete the survey as well as instructions on accessing the survey. The 2021 ABS initial mailing is scheduled for July 2021. Responses will be due approximately 30 days from initial mailing. Respondents will also receive a due date reminder approximately one week before responses are due.
Statistics from the ABS will be used by government program officials, industry organization leaders, economic and social analysts, business entrepreneurs, and domestic and foreign researchers in academia, business, and government. Estimates produced on owner demographic data may be used to assess business assistance needs, allocate available program resources, and create a framework for planning, directing, and assessing programs that promote the activities of disadvantaged groups; to assess minority-owned businesses by industry and area and to educate industry associations,
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