In our last blog post , we explored how employment numbers are recorded among U.S. firms at a single point each year—March 12—and how this approach fails to capture the volatility of employment among small firms with 1–20 workers. In today’s post, we use new data from the SFD USA sample to further illustrate this point. Our researchers gather the number of workers at the firms every two to four weeks. This higher frequency approach allows us to observe changes as they happen:

What is an “employer” firm? Consider the following scenario:   A tutoring business opens in late 2022, staffed only by the owner.    In early 2023, after several months building a client list, she brings on a handful of college students to take on additional clients on a contract basis.   In April 2024, the owner hires her first full-time, W2 employee.  This person departs in early 2025, and she begins looking for a replacement. In May 2025, she hires another W2 employee.  In

By Myriam Delmy and Laura Freschi In the United States, even the smallest businesses are connected to a digital ecosystem. We’ve found that the firms in the Small Firm Diaries USA study typically prepare records for quarterly or annual tax filings on some type of software, and these records are often linked to other digital financial information including bank and credit card accounts, point-of-sale (POS) and payroll services.  This means that for the US arm of the study, the

On November 19, 2025, FAI hosted a faiVLive webinar to introduce the Small Firm Diaries USA study. We shared early observations, and talked with expert panelists about how recent policy and program changes are affecting small businesses and organizations that support them. FAI Managing Director Tim Ogden moderated our discussion with: Chi Mac, Executive Director of JPMorganChase Institute  Amy Hereford, President & CEO of LiftFund Inc., and Jay Nwachi, President & Ceo of Inno