Justification for Nonsubstnative change

The Business and Classification Report (SQ-CLASS), is a survey that is sent to a sample of establishments with new Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) obtained from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). The data collected by the SQ-CLASS report directly impacts the Economic Census and other current surveys by providing up-to-date information on businesses sampled in the Economic Census and current surveys. Given the important usage of this information, and the crucial need to collect accurate information on economic indicators, we are requesting authority to mail SQ-CLASS forms to additional establishments in order to provide an adequate sample of births for second stage sampling that takes place in our Services Annual Survey (SAS) and Quarterly Services Survey (QSS).

The Census Bureau is expanding the industry coverage of both the SAS and the QSS. The SAS survey is expanding to include utilities; educational services; and the remainder of transportation; finance and insurance; and real estate and rental and leasing not currently covered in the survey. The QSS survey is expanding to include utilities; air transportation; water transportation; transit and ground passenger transportation; pipeline transportation; scenic and sightseeing transportation; support activities for transportation; monetary authorities – central bank; insurance carriers and related services; real estate; lessors of nonfinancial intangible assets (except copyrighted works); and educational services. These survey expansions are part of a budget initiative approved by Congress in FY09.

As a result of these survey expansions, additional establishments need to be mailed a Business and Professional Classification Report (SQ-CLASS) in order to expand the sample units to the survey panels of the SAS and QSS surveys. The SAS and QSS surveys rely on the Business and Professional Classification Report to provide an adequate sample of births to determine market trends.

Currently, we have approval for 50,000 Business and Professional Classification Report respondents. We are requesting approval for 67,000 respondents for FY09. At an average of .2167 hours per response, the estimated new burden will be approximately 14,519 hours, an increase from the 2008 estimate of 10,835. The net increase is 3,684 hours.