Exploring Economic Trends: The Release of the 2022 County Business Patterns (CBP) Data by the U.S. Census Bureau

On June 27, 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau unveiled the release of its latest annual collection of data, the 2022 County Business Patterns (CBP). This comprehensive resource offers economic statistics at a subnational level, organized by industry.

The CBP data is accessible to users at various levels including national, state, combined statistical area, metropolitan/micropolitan statistical area, county, congressional district and ZIP Code. It provides information for Puerto Rico and the Island Areas at the state and county-equivalent levels, making it a valuable tool for economic analysis.

Federal agencies use this data to track employee trends and concentrations by industry while private businesses analyze market potential and evaluate sales and advertising strategies based on this information. State and local government offices assess business changes and develop fiscal policies using this data to plan future initiatives.

The CBP data is sourced from the Business Register maintained by the Census Bureau that contains information from both single and multi-establishment employer companies. Typically non-survey data is used to compile this dataset which is often sourced from tax returns. The CBP datasets from 1986 to the current year are available for download while CBP tables from 2012 onwards can be accessed through data.census.gov.