The U.S. Census Bureau has published the main data release from the 2023 Annual Integrated Economic Survey (AIES), marking the first time a single, comprehensive annual dataset for U.S. employer businesses is available. The AIES includes information on business revenue, expenses, payroll, and employment, now broken down by national, regional, divisional, and selected state levels—expanding detail that was previously only at the national scale for many sectors.
“This release of data represents a significant step forward in the Census Bureau’s efforts to adapt to our ever-changing economy and transform our business statistics,” said Lisa Donaldson, assistant director for Economic Programs. “By combining breadth of coverage with new geographic detail, the AIES provides insights that will shape decisions across the public and private sectors.”
Highlights from the survey show varied performance across industries. Automobile dealers reported $278.2 billion in revenue and 281,789 employees; drugs and druggists’ sundries merchant wholesalers earned $298.6 billion in sales; pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing had 78,565 workers with an annual payroll of $8.8 billion; hospitals brought in $300.6 billion in revenue with 1,337,057 employees; grocery stores made $337.5 billion in revenue with an annual payroll of $32.1 billion; electric power generation employed 202,720 workers with a payroll of $24.4 billion; telecommunications companies earned $155.9 billion with a payroll of $19.6 billion; and data processing services employed 258,344 workers with a payroll of $30.4 billion.
The survey covers domestic private sector nonfarm employer businesses that operated at least part of 2023 within the United States or District of Columbia and have paid employees classified under one of nineteen sectors defined by the 2017 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). About 385,000 businesses were sampled based on geography and industry type.
Estimates provided are not adjusted for price changes and may be subject to sampling variability or other errors according to the Census Bureau’s methodology guidelines.
Lisa Donaldson added that these new statistics replace preliminary estimates released earlier as “First Look” data in July 2025.
More details about methodology and confidentiality protections are available through official Census Bureau resources.
