Business Applications: Total for All NAICS (SA)

## What this measures

Applications for an Employer Identification Number, all industries, seasonally adjusted. Every new business starts here.

## Why it matters

Business formation is the labor floor's other side: when people stop being hired, some of them start something. A rising count during a hiring slowdown is churn, not collapse. A falling count alongside falling postings is the floor going.

## How to read it

Level and trend. The post-2020 level is structurally higher than the 2010s; compare against the trailing two years, not the prior decade.

## What it does not say

An application is not a business with payroll. Census publishes a separate high-propensity series for applications likely to hire.

## Source

US Census Bureau via FRED (`BABATOTALSAUS`). Monthly, public.