WASHINGTON – Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, introduced legislation that would provide the private sector and our federal government with critical data to help support our nation’s economic growth. The Quarterly Financial Reporting Reauthorization Act of 2015, would reauthorize the U.S. Census Bureau to produce quarterly economic reports that provide timely, accurate data on business financial conditions for the next 15 years.
“The U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Financial Reports supply high-quality, comprehensive data that map out our nation’s financial landscape. These reports help businesses across the country, both large and small, and officials at all levels of government – local, state, and federal — make informed decisions on investments, planning, and how best to serve the public,” said Sen. Carper. “From routine financial performance reviews to reports on the national gross domestic product, our nation’s public and private sectors would suffer if we let this critical program expire. I urge my colleagues in Congress to take swift action to reauthorize the production of these important economic indicators.”
The Quarterly Financial Reports produced by the Census Bureau provide income and other corporate information on the manufacturing, mining, wholesale trade, retail trade, information, and professional, scientific and technical services sectors of the economy. In addition to providing useful information to the private sector, the Quarterly Financial Reports feed into the quarterly estimates of gross domestic income produced by the Bureau of Economic Statistics. Other major users of the data include the Federal Reserve Board, which uses the data as a major building block in its Flow of Funds account, and the Small Business Administration, which uses the data to track the financial performance of small businesses. The Quarterly Financial Reports were last reauthorized in 2005 with an authorization period that expires September 30, 2015.