Waste and Hazardous Materials

The data for this survey report were collected for the NFIB Research Foundation by the executive interviewing group of The Gallup Organization. The interviews for this edition of the Poll were conducted between April 27 - May 10, 2007 from a sample of small employers. “Small employer” was defined for purposes of this survey as a business owner employing no fewer than one individual in addition to the owner(s) and no more than 249.

The sampling frame used for the survey was drawn at the Foundation’s direction from the files of the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, an imperfect file but the best currently available for public use. A random stratified sample design is typically employed to compensate for the highly skewed distribution of small-business owners by employee size of firm (Table A1). Almost 60 percent of employers in the United States employ just one to four people meaning that a random sample would yield comparatively few larger small employers to interview. Since size within the small-business population is often an important differentiating variable, it is important that an adequate number of interviews be conducted among those employing more than 10 people. The interview quotas established to achieve these added interviews from larger, small-business owners are arbitrary but adequate to allow independent examination of the 10-19 and 20-249 employee size classes as well as the 1-9 employee size group.

Table A1
Sample Composition Under Varying Scenarios
Expected from Random Sample*      Obtained from Stratified Random Sample
Employee                          Percent                      Percent                                Percent
Size of        Interviews      Distri-        Interview    Distri-         Completed       Distri-
Firm            Expected        butions      Quotas       bution        Interviews        bution
1-9                    593                 79              350               47               350                  46
10-19                 82                  11              200               27               200                  27
20-249               75                  10              200               27               201                  27
All Firms           750                100             750              101              751                 100

* Sample universe developed from special runs supplied the NFIB Research Foundation by the Bureau of the Census (1997 data).