Trade associations are organizations made up of people who work in a certain industry or market or occupation. They often gather and publish data on their industries, some of which may be available for no charge on the association web site.
Trade associations can be located by methods such as guessing their name in a Google search - "national restaurant association" - or looking in a directory of trade associations, such as the Encyclopedia of Associations.
Examples of trade associations that gather and distribute industry data or other types of information of interest to members:
National, state, and local governments also, gather and publish data on consumers and industries; government-collected data is usually free. Also, gather data on industries in various geographic areas. There is a time lag between the collection of data and publication of reports.
The Census Bureau does not publish data on individual firms. These three reports provide data on industries at the national or local levels. Data from the 2012 Economic Census will be available in 2014.
