Oct 6 -- The Census Bureau invites comments by December 5, 2022 regarding the continuation of the Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey.
The Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey (MWTS) provides measures of monthly sales, end-of-month inventories, and inventories/sales ratios in the United States by selected kinds of business for merchant wholesalers, excluding manufacturers' sales branches and offices. Estimates from the MWTS are released in three different reports each month. High level aggregate estimates for end-of-month inventories are first released as part of the Advance Economic Indicators Report approximately 27 days after the close of the reference month. The full Monthly Wholesale Trade Report containing both sales and inventories estimates is released approximately 39 days after the close of the reference month. Sales and inventories estimates from the MWTS are also released as part of the Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales (MTIS) report issued approximately 45 days after the close of the reference month. The Bureau of Economic Analysis uses this information to improve the inventory valuation adjustments applied to estimates of the Gross Domestic Product. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) uses the data as input to develop Producer Price Indexes and productivity measurements.
The MWTS sales estimates are also used as an input in the Monthly Real Dollar Estimates of Wholesale Sales experimental product, first published on September 19, 2022, which is a supplement to the MWTS report. The estimates were created from the nominal MWTS sales series using product weights developed from existing Census Bureau data releases and price indexes from the BLS. Within the report, real dollar sales estimates and corresponding residuals are available for Total Merchant Wholesalers, except Manufacturers' Sales Branches and Offices, as well as the two 3-digit and eighteen 4-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) wholesale subsectors. Monthly estimates are available from January 2012 forward.
Estimates produced from the MWTS are based on a probability sample and are published on the NAICS basis. The sample design consists of small, medium, and large cases requested to report sales and inventories each month. The sample, consisting of about 4,200 wholesale businesses, is drawn from the Business Register, which contains all Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) and listed establishment locations. The sample is updated quarterly to reflect employer business “births” and “deaths”. New employer businesses identified in the Business and Professional Classification Survey are added and employer businesses determined to be no longer active are removed.
Respondents are initially contacted primarily by email, with a small subset receiving a form by mail. After initial contact, non-respondents are contacted by email and/or telephone follow-up. We collect the data primarily by internet. We collect a small portion of the data by mail, telephone follow-up, and fax.
Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/mwts.html Includes links to current surveys and methodology.
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2022-21721
