New U.S. Business Establishments: Surging or Stalling?

Dan Cao, Henry Hyatt, Toshihiko Mukoyama and Erick Sager

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: Since the 1990s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has reported much more rapid growth in U.S. private sector employer establishments than has the Census Bureau– the gap reached roughly 1.6 million by 2023. Using linked BLS-Census microdata, we document two main drivers. First, a large and growing number of employers providing services to the elderly and persons with disabilities are in scope for the BLS frame but not the Census Bureau’s. Second, many firms appear with substantially more establishments in the BLS frame. These discrepancies substantially affect the measured establishment size distribution and quantitative policy analysis.

Keywords: establishments; multi-unit firms; concentration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J21 L11 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06
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https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2026/adrm/ces/CES-WP-26-36.pdf First version, 2026 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-36

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