Real-Time Reality Check: May Business Trends Survey Captures U.S. Economic Mood

Image Source: World Bank Blogs

The U.S. Census Bureau has published its most recent Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) data up to May 8, 2025, giving us a complete picture of the business climate, issues, and expectations in the American economy. BTOS remains an essential tool for policymakers, business entrepreneurs, and analysts alike, giving them real-time, every-other-week insights into the changing business environment.

Key Highlights:

The BTOS spans around 1.2 million employer firms in the U.S., excluding farms, with data published every two weeks and detailed by industry, state, and the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas.
The newest publication contains new information on business revenues, employment, hours, inventories, and information about multiunit/multilocation firms.
Current cycles have included additional questions, including work-from-home (WFH) trends, filling gaps in knowledge about how remote work is handled, how often it occurs, the problems it poses, and its overall business effect.
The survey offers timely, essential information that assists local, state, and federal policymakers in making informed decisions, particularly in reaction to economic shocks, natural disasters, or crises.
Firms report across a variety of indicators, such as sales, staffing changes, and operational difficulties, to enable detailed tracking of economic recovery and trends at sector level.
The BTOS is optimized for efficiency, with the respondent only taking an average of nine minutes to answer the questions, and therefore high levels of participation and relevance of data.

The most recent release of data is available for public use, enhancing transparency and to support businesses in strategic decision-making.

This ongoing, high-granularity data stream is key to monitoring the health of the U.S. business community and informing economic policy at all levels.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau