S T E V E . D O I G @ A S U . E D U

CREATING A CBP LESSON

LESSON OVERVIEW

•  Discuss Census Bureau as a rich source of business/economic data.

•  Download county-level economic sector data on payroll, employees and establishments for two different time periods (like pre- and post-recession.)

•  Use Excel to calculate useful measures – totals, differences, percents and percentage change – across time.

•  Discover how different sectors of the local economy have changed across time.

LESSON GOALS FOR STUDENTS

•  Learn about Census Bureau business data as a source of story ideas.

•  Learn to find local economic data about industry sectors with County Business Patterns from Census.

•  Learn to use Excel spreadsheet to calculate sums, differences, percents and percentage change.

•  Learn to use results of calculations to spot trends in the data.

PREPARATION

•  Download raw tables from Census •  Prepare a spreadsheet that has two different years of

data side by side. •  Format the numbers and text to make them more

readable. •  Delete the “first quarter payroll” columns (why? kind of

redundant to annual payroll.) •  Delete “total for all sectors” row (why? So students can

calculate the totals themselves.) •  Add variable names to be calculated during the lesson.

(or have students do that.) •  Save and put somewhere for students to download

during lesson.

WWW.CENSUS.GOV/ECON/CBP/INDEX.HTML

WWW.CENSUS.GOV/ECON/CBP/INDEX.HTML

PICK STATE, THEN COUNTY

GET THIS TABLE

SAVE AS A CSV FILE

OPEN RAW TABLE IN EXCEL

SELECT, COPY, THEN PASTE INTO A NEW WORKSHEET

PASTE 2011 AND 2007 SIDE BY SIDE

DELETE “FIRST QUARTER PAYROLL” COLUMNS

FORMAT TO MAKE IT READABLE; ADD 2011 AND 2007 TO THE VARS

ADD NEW COLUMNS FOR LESSON

EXCEL CALCULATIONS

•  Find number change in number of employees for each sector

•  Find number change in annual payroll by sector •  Find number change in total establishments by

sector •  Find percentage change in number of employees

for each sector •  Find percentage change in annual payroll by

sector •  Find percentage change in total establishments by

sector

FORMULAS FOR LESSON

ANSWERS

PATTERNS TO EXPLORE

•  What was the economy-wide change in total employees, payroll and establishments between the two periods?

•  Which sectors gained/lost the most in absolute terms?

•  Which sectors gained/lost the most in percentage terms?

OTHER IDEAS

•  Calculate each sectors’ share of the total economy in both periods. Who is gaining and who is shrinking?

•  Calculate the “average income” by sector (payroll*1000/employees). Correct for inflation by using the CPI. Any real growth/loss?

•  Explore change in the size of establishments by using the bottom of the CBP table.

•  If you want to focus on a particular sector, go back to the CBP website table and click on “detail”. Download that resultinto Excel and do similar calculations.