Appendix A

Observations from Users of the Annual Economic Surveys

As described in Chapter 2, the Panel on Reengineering the Census Bureau’s Annual Economic Surveys requested input from users and potential users of data from these surveys. The panel received input from 11 users: some spoke at an open meeting of the panel on June 2, 2016; others spoke with individual panel members. The panel is very appreciative of their input.

The panel asked users to address the following questions:

• What is the mission of your organization/department? Who are your clients?
• What economic data do you use, most specifically from the Census Bureau, but also from other federal agencies? What annual Census Bureau economic surveys do you use, if any? Approximately, what share of your work involves economic census data? How do you use them? How important is it for your mission?
• How do you access the Census Bureau data? Is there a change(s) that would significantly reduce your burden in accessing their data?
• In which of your publications/products are census economic data used?
• What other economic data do you use, and what is the source? If you purchase data from a private vendor, who is the vendor? What data do you purchase from them, and why? What are the benefits and downsides of using privately sourced data?
• What limitations or gaps do you see in the data? How do you deal with them?

• What are the trends in data use in your industry or organization, such as in data availability, data analytics, technology changes, big data/open data, staffing pressures, changing expectations from clients/supporters, etc.?
• What are three suggestions or actions you would recommend for the Census Bureau to improve the usability of their economic data products?

The following users provided input to the panel:

Kim Bayard, principal economist, Division of Research and Statistics, Federal Reserve Board

Aaron Catlin, deputy director, National Health Statistics Group, Office of the Actuary, Centers & Medicare and Medicaid Services

Jim Diffley, senior director, Industry Services and Consulting Group, IHS Economics

Dennis Fixler, chief economist, Bureau of Economic Analysis

Vanessa Goeschl, senior vice president, Economic Development, Charlotte (NC) Regional Partnership

Maurine Haver, president, Haver Analytics, Inc.

Eric Long, research economist, Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce

Nancy McCrea, director, Maryland Department of Commerce, Policy Planning, and Research

Jose Plehn, chairman, chief research officer, and cofounder, Powerlytics

Chris Sparks, division chief, Industry and Productivity Studies, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Neal Young, director, Economic Analysis, Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development

Table A-1 lists specific user observations and suggestions, which the U.S. Census Bureau may wish to consider in reengineering the surveys. The table entries are arranged by dimension (relevance, accuracy, timeliness, consistency, and accessibility) and user organization.

TABLE A-1 User Suggestions for the Census Bureau’s Annual Economic Surveys

NOTES: AFF, American FactFinder; API, application programming interface; ASM, Annual Survey of Manufactures; BEA, Bureau of Economic Analysis; FSRDC, Federal Statistical System Research Data Center; FTP, file transfer protocol; ICTS, Information and Communication Survey; NAICS, North American Industry Classification System; NAPCS, North American Product Classification System; NIPA, National Income and Product Accounts; QSS, Quarterly Services Survey; RSS, rich site summary or really simple syndication; SAS, service annual survey.

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