1992 CENSUS OF FINANCIAL, INSURANCE, AND REAL ESTATE INDUSTRIES CENSUS COVERAGE AND METHODOLOGY =>STRUCTURE AND METHOD OF ENUMERATION Firms in the 1992 Census of Financial, Insurance, and Real Estate Industries were divided into the nonmail universe and mail universe. The coverage and the method of obtaining census information from each follow: 1. The nonmail universe consisted of firms which were not required to file a regular census return and included: a. All nonemployers, i.e., all firms with no paid employees during 1992. Revenue information for these firms was obtained from administrative records of other Federal agencies. Although consisting of many firms, nonemployers accounted for less than 6 percent of total revenue of all establishments covered in the census. The census included only those financial, insurance, and real estate nonemployer firms which reported a revenue volume of $1,000 or more during 1992. Data for nonemployers are not included in this report, but are provided in the Nonemployer Statistics report (FC92-N-1). b. Selected small employers, i.e., single-establishment firms with payroll below a specified cutoff classified in Major Group 64. (The term "employers" refers to firms with one or more paid employees at any time during 1992 as shown in the active administrative records of other Federal agencies.) Small employers generally included firms with fewer than 10 employees and represented about 20 percent of total revenue of establishments in Major Group 64. Data on revenue, payroll, and employment for employer firms below the payroll cutoff were derived or estimated from administrative records of other Federal agencies, except for a sample of small employer firms in Major Group 64 for which specialized data requirements precluded reliance solely on administrative records sources. This sample was included in the mail universe. 2. The mail universe consisted of firms for which information was obtained by means of a mail canvass and included: a. Large employers, i.e., all mulitestablishment firms, and all employer firms above the payroll size cutoff referred to in section 1b. Within this category, a report of company organization was conducted periodically to identify establishment locations of firms which operated at more than one location and to obtain information on payroll and mid-March employment at each location. The 1991 Report of Company Organization was used as a coverage check in the census. In the 1992 census, all mulitestablishment firms were asked to notify the Census Bureau of any establishments for which a form was not received. Report forms were subsequently provided to the firms for these establishments. In the 1992 census, multiestablishment firms were divided into two categories of report forms, State and establishment. Firms with establishments classified in selected banking (SIC 60) and insurance (SIC 63) industries were sent report forms to collect information for each State in which those firms operated. In addition to the information reported in summary for the State, those firms were asked to report the payroll and mid-March employment for each establishment operated in the State. All other establishments of multiestablishment firms classified in all other financial, insurance, and real estate industries were sent individual report forms for each location. All multiestablishment firms were asked to notify the Census Bureau of any States or establishments for which a form was not received. Report forms were subsequently provided to the firms for these States or establishments. b. The sample of small employer firms in Major Group 64 for which specialized data precluded reliance solely on administrative records sources. These firms were sent the census mailing packages containing the appropriate 1992 questionnaire. =>METHOD OF CLASSIFYING KINDS OF BUSINESS The financial, insurance, and real estate industries classifications for all establishments were based on the Standard Industrial Classification Manual: 1987 (SIC). (For sale by Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C. 20402. Stock No. 041-001-00314-2.) However, the method of assigning these classifications, and the level of detail at which establishments were classified, differed between the nonmail and mail universes as follows: 1. The nonmail universe a. Nonemployers were classified on the basis of information obtained from administrative records of other Federal agencies. b. Selected small employers in Major Group 64 were classified on the basis of a brief inquiry requesting information necessary to assign a 1992 census kind-of-business code, or the classification was obtained from the administrative records of other Federal agencies. 2. Establishments in the mail universe were classified on the basis of their self-designation, sources of revenue, and other special inquiries. SOURCES OF REVENUE =>REVENUE LINE INQUIRY COMPOSITION The revenue line inquiries on 1992 questionnaires were tailored to the kinds of business that would receive them. Because a complete set of broad revenue lines was not present on any particular questionnaire, respondents sometimes found that part of their revenue did not fit any available revenue line category. When this occurred, they were asked to report is revenue on lines for "all other revenue" and to describe the kind of revenue represented. Census personnel subsequently attempted to classify these revenues based on the respondent's description, and to assign the revenue to the appropriate revenue line category. A small percentage of revenue could not be classified and is therefore summarized in this report in a category called "all other revenue." The effect of excluding insignificant broad revenue lines on particular report forms is an understatement of the number of establishments receiving revenue from each source, and, to a lesser extent, the corresponding revenue figure. The magnitude of this understatement for all revenue lines combined is indicated, at least in part, by the data presented for the "all other revenue" category. =>TREATMENT OF NONRESPONSE Reporting was incomplete or inadequate for establishments representing about 15 percent of the total dollar volume of establishments with payroll. However, revenue line data were expanded to estimate the revenue of all establishments with payroll. The expansion is based on the premise that the revenue lines data for those establishments not reporting this information are similar to revenue lines data for those establishments in the same kind business that reported this information. Revenue lines data were expanded at the county level by kind-of-business classification based on reported data at that level. If there were no reported revenue lines data for a particular combination of geographic area and kind of business, expansion factors developed at the United States level were used to produce an estimate. These estimates for the most detailed level of geography and kind of business were than summed to produce higher level geography and kind-of-business estimates. =>COVERAGE File 1, Revenue Lines by Kind of Business, presents coverage percents for each kind of business shown. Coverage percents indicate the degree to which establishements in each kind of business acceptably reported broad revenue lines. Coverage was determined by dividing total revenue of establishments reporting acceptable data for broad lines (whether or not additional detail lines were reported) by total revenue of all establishments classified in that particular kind of business. In addition, coverage percents are presented for selected broad lines where additional detailed line information within the broad line was requested. This data indicates the degree to which detail lines within that broad line were acceptably reported. The coverage percent was computed by dividing total revenue of establishments reporting detail within the particular broad line by the estimated sales of establishments reporting that broad line within the particular kind of business. Except when precluded by the census disclosure rules (see Introduction), data are shown for individual kinds of business when the dollar volume of reporting coverage accounts for 60 percent or more of revenue after weighting revenue lines of the sample of "small employers" described inthe Census Coverage and Methodology section above. =>MEASURES OF SAMPLING VARIABILITY Because the revenue lines estimates are based in part on a sample, exact agreement with the results that would be obtained from a complete census of establishments using the same enumeration procedure should not be expected. However, because each establishment's chance of being selected for the sample was known, it was possible to estimate the sampling variability of the estimates made from the sample.