U.S. Census Bureau


Get To Know Your Customers Better

Demographics sounds expensive and frightening, but it's a useful tool even for small companies.  Read story

Business Failure and Dissolution

Related Terms: Bankruptcy ; Read story

Census Data

The U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 2) mandates that a census ("enumeration") of the population be conducted at 10-year intervals. The first census ...  Read story

Discretionary Income

Discretionary income is a widely used but imprecise definition of that portion of personal income not spent on actual or perceived necessities. Thus discr...  Read story

Mail-Order Business

A mail-order business is one that receives and fulfills orders for merchandise through the mail. The terms "mail-order," "direct mail," and "direct market...  Read story

Minority-Owned Businesses

Minority-owned businesses are on the rise. Over the past twenty years the United States has seen steady growth in the number of businesses owned by minori...  Read story

Service Businesses

INDUSTRIAL CLASSIFICATION Industries are broadly classified as goods-producing and services-producing, but in the gradual evolution of industrial...  Read story

Women-owned Companies

A new report from the U.S. Bureau of the Census makes official that more and more American businesses are owned by women. Based on 1982 federal tax retur...  Read story

Entrepreneurial Ventures Surge, Says Census Data

June 21, 2004 -- During the economic boom of the late 1990s and even through the ensuing bust, millions of Americans formed their own bus...  Read story

Census Bureau Introduces New Economic Indicator

Sept. 14, 2004 --A new economic indicator released Monday showed that overall services revenue in the U.S. increased 5.4% in the second qu...  Read story

Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses Skyrocket

New Census data shows significantly higher startup rates among such groups.  Read story

Most Small Businesses Start Without Outside Capital

New Census reports reveal how the nation's businesses are funded, where they are based, and other demographics.  Read story

Census Bureau to Update Employment Data

Nov. 8, 2006 -- The Census Bureau will interview some 70,000 households across the nation during the week of Nov. 12 for the Current Popu...  Read story

The Soloists

How many one-person businesses are there -- and what do they actually do?  Read story

Planning for Customers by the Numbers

As an essential first step to writing a business plan, you should have a good idea of how many potential customers there are. Most business plans c...  Read story

Hispanic Businesses on Growth Path

June 7, 2004 -- Six years from now, Hispanic-owned businesses will earn an estimated $465 billion and number 3.2 million, according to a n...  Read story

Counting Companies

How many small businesses are there? Just a few more than there are ways to count them.  Read story

Inc. Online Exclusives April 2007

April 2007 ...  Read story

Employee Retention

Employees leave a company to get a better job—and for other reasons. It has cost the business money to hire and to train them; over time they have becom...  Read story

Entrepreneurial Couples

If farming is considered a business, and all farms have a definite business aspect, then the reality of couples working together in a business goes back t...  Read story

Multicultural Work Force

A multicultural work force is one made up of men and women from a variety of different cultural and racial backgrounds. The labor force of any country is ...  Read story

Where To Start

Access to computerized information doesn't have to cost a lot. Government agencies, trade associations, and even your own suppliers can be inexpensive so...  Read story

The Silent Majority

Statistics show a low turnout of business workers at the polls.  Read story

Global Business

Related Terms: Globalization Global business refer...  Read story

Number of Small Businesses Reaches All-Time High

A new SBA report counts six million small firms with employees and close to 20 million sole proprietorships.  Read story

Make Your Business Count

Make your business count! And have your business be counted. It's time for the Economic Census of the United States. Every five years, the US Censu...  Read story

Market Research

Related Terms: Focus Groups If the "market" is viewe...  Read story

Uncle Sam Doesn't Know Much About You

Unless small businesspeople demand that the U.S. collect better information, nobody will know how important they are.  Read story

Business-to-Consumer

Related Terms: Business to Business ; Read story

Small Business

Most people get their definition of "small business" from personal experience in dealing with small retail stores and service organizations. Most people a...  Read story

Free Software

Company sells list of software programs available free from the government.  Read story

Resources: Click Here for Business Help

The URLs for three data-packed Web sites.  Read story

Getting the Dirt on Your Market

New location? Get market information, including population density, demographics, and the number and type of local businesses.  Read story

Employee Compensation

Related Terms: Employee Benefits ; Read story

Retail Trade

Related Terms: Dot-coms Retailers are business firms engaged...  Read story

How to Profit from Market Research

Knowing what your customers want and how they want it is essential to any business. Here's how to gather information through market research.  Read story

Resources

A guide to more information on subjects covered in the Inc. magazine special issue: The State of Small Business 1997.  Read story

Manufacturers Go Online to Boost Business

Jan. 31, 2005 --After wrapping up a healthy year, America's manufacturing sector is looking toward the Internet to keep the party going in...  Read story

The Entrepreneurial Numbers Game

Q: How many researchers does it take to calculate the number of new businesses in the United States? A: It doesn't matter.  Read story