The U.S. Census Bureau, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) have teamed together to fund the first annual survey focused on the characteristics of employer businesses and their owners.

The Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE) is a supplement to the Survey of Business Owners (SBO), which collects economic and demographic information every five years and categorizes the business ownership by the gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status of the majority owners. The new annual survey offers a more frequent collection of these data (covering survey reference years 2014, 2015, and 2016) and introduces a new module of questions each survey year to measure different components of business growth. The 2014 ASE module focuses on entrepreneurs' innovation practices and research and development activity.

The Census Bureau is currently fielding approximately 290,000 employer businesses for responses to the 2014 ASE. Data collection will continue through January 2016.  The 2014 ASE data products by geography, industry, gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status will be released during the summer of 2016.

These new statistics place special emphasis on assessing the impact that young firms have on the growth of the U.S. economy. Additionally, the ASE implements a longitudinal component, which allows the tracking and analysis of the growth of the businesses being surveyed over time. 

For more information visit Census Bureau website at www.census.gov/.