Why are certain questions included on the 2002 Economic Census forms?
Every question on the forms must meet three critical criteria: • The information must be available from records normally maintained by firms in the industry (or can be estimated readily). • The data requested must be important. • The data must not be available from other sources. Trade and professional associations representing most of the industries included in the economic census were consulted and asked to coment on the forms. Only questions that met all three criteria were included (for example, employment, payroll, and sales/receipts).
