4 Notes
4.1 Introduction
I learned about this data from Jeremy Singer-Vines’ Data Is Plural 2023.05.31 edition
Local business. Despite the name, the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns datasets cover a range of geographic units, including states, congressional districts, metro areas, counties, and ZIP codes. Generated from the Bureau’s confidential Business Register, they provide the number of establishments and (noise-infused) employee counts and payroll figures, disaggregated by industry code. Last month, the Bureau released the data for 2021. Historical availability varies; the Bureau directly provides data for counties back to 1986, and for ZIP codes back to 1994, for example. Fabian Eckert and colleagues, meanwhile, have converted two older archives of the records into comparable data, spanning 1946 to 1974 and 1975 onward.
For an overview see https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
4.2 Sources and reference files
I downloaded data from https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2021/econ/cbp/2021-cbp.html on 2023-06-04. Specifically: Complete County File [102.9 MB] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/datasets/2021/cbp21co.zip and all years from 2001 onward.
The CSV files are like this:
% cat cbp21co.txt | head
"fipstate","fipscty","naics","emp_nf","emp","qp1_nf","qp1","ap_nf","ap","est","n<5","n5_9","n10_19","n20_49","n50_99","n100_249","n250_499","n500_999","n1000","n1000_1","n1000_2","n1000_3","n1000_4"
"01","001","------","G",11216,"G",97944,"G",424826,924,442,222,118,100,31,8,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
"01","001","11----","G",78,"G",1325,"G",5107,10,9,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
"01","001","113///","G",68,"G",1213,"G",4563,7,6,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
"01","001","1133//","G",68,"G",1213,"G",4563,7,6,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
"01","001","11331/","G",68,"G",1213,"G",4563,7,6,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
"01","001","113310","G",68,"G",1213,"G",4563,7,6,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
"01","001","115///","J",10,"J",112,"J",544,3,3,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
"01","001","21----","G",87,"G",1224,"G",5144,6,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
"01","001","212///","G",87,"G",1224,"G",5144,6,"N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N"
County Record Layout [<1.0 MB] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/records-layouts/2020_record_layouts/county-layout-2020.txt
CBP[YR]CO.TXT
County Data Dictionary
Note: In the filenames, [YR] is the 2-digit data year. Each data field is separated by comma (,) delimiters.
Field Data
Name Type Description
FIPSTATE C FIPS State Code
FIPSCTY C FIPS County Code
NAICS C Industry Code - 6-digit NAICS code.
EMP_NF C Total Mid-March Employees Noise Flag (See all Noise Flag definitions at the end of this record
layout)
EMP N Total Mid-March Employees with Noise
QP1_NF C Total First Quarter Payroll Noise Flag
QP1 N Total First Quarter Payroll ($1,000) with Noise
AP_NF C Total Annual Payroll Noise Flag
AP N Total Annual Payroll ($1,000) with Noise
EST N Total Number of Establishments
N<5 N Number of Establishments: Less than 5 Employee Size Class
N5_9 N Number of Establishments: 5-9 Employee Size Class
N10_19 N Number of Establishments: 10-19 Employee Size Class
N20_49 N Number of Establishments: 20-49 Employee Size Class
N50_99 N Number of Establishments: 50-99 Employee Size Class
N100_249 N Number of Establishments: 100-249 Employee Size Class
N250_499 N Number of Establishments: 250-499 Employee Size Class
N500_999 N Number of Establishments: 500-999 Employee Size Class
N1000 N Number of Establishments: 1,000 or More Employee Size Class
N1000_1 N Number of Establishments: Employment Size Class:
1,000-1,499 Employees
N1000_2 N Number of Establishments: Employment Size Class:
1,500-2,499 Employees
N1000_3 N Number of Establishments: Employment Size Class:
2,500-4,999 Employees
N1000_4 N Number of Establishments: Employment Size Class:
5,000 or More Employees
NOTE: Noise Flag definitions (fields ending in _NF) are:
G 0 to < 2% noise (low noise)
H 2 to < 5% noise (medium noise)
J >= 5% noise (high noise)
Flag definition for Establishment by Employment Size Class fields (N<5, N5_9, etc.):
N Not available or not comparable
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Descriptions [<1.0 MB] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/reference/naics-descriptions/naics2017.txt
"NAICS","DESCRIPTION"
"------","Total for all sectors"
"11----","Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting"
"113///","Forestry and Logging"
"1131//","Timber Tract Operations"
"11311/","Timber Tract Operations"
"113110","Timber Tract Operations"
"1132//","Forest Nurseries and Gathering of Forest Products"
"11321/","Forest Nurseries and Gathering of Forest Products"
"113210","Forest Nurseries and Gathering of Forest Products"
"1133//","Logging"
"11331/","Logging"
"113310","Logging"
"114///","Fishing, Hunting and Trapping"
"1141//","Fishing"
"11411/","Fishing"
"114111","Finfish Fishing"
"114112","Shellfish Fishing"
"114119","Other Marine Fishing"
"1142//","Hunting and Trapping"
"11421/","Hunting and Trapping"
"114210","Hunting and Trapping"
State and County Geography Reference [<1.0 MB] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/reference/state-county-geography-reference/georef17.txt
Note: NC FIPS state code is “37”
"st","cty","ctyname"
"01","001","Autauga County, Alabama"
"01","003","Baldwin County, Alabama"
"01","005","Barbour County, Alabama"
"01","007","Bibb County, Alabama"
"01","009","Blount County, Alabama"
The categories and codes changed a lot over the decades. I considered using Ekert et al.’s method1 to deal with this (and I made an attempt). However I found it difficult to be sure I was implementing the method correctly, so I limited my usage to sector totals to minimize the impact of changing categories… as well as limiting myself to data starting in 2001 by which time the categories and codes were much more stable.
Fabian Eckert, Teresa C. Fort, Peter K. Schott, and Natalie J. Yang. “Imputing Missing Values in the US Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns.” NBER Working Paper #26632, 2021. Data and documentation at https://www.fpeckert.me/cbp/ ↩︎