Real-time economic data

The small business economy, measured every month

Three indicators built from anonymized payroll data on 500,000+ small businesses with 1–49 employees.

Latest release Aug 2026
Next release Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Gusto Small Business Jobs NumberAug 2026
+29,473
−12,944 vs. prior month
Net hires, monthlyExplore data →
Average Hourly EarningsAug 2026
$37.31
+3.9% year over year
Average hourly earnings, monthlyExplore data →
New Hire Pay IndexAug 2026
+3.2%
$25.77 per hour
New hire pay, monthlyExplore data →

Sample

A stratified random sample of US businesses with 1–49 employees, drawn from the 500,000+ companies on Gusto and matched to national industry, size, and regional distributions.

Method

Series are seasonally adjusted with the US Census Bureau’s X-13ARIMA-SEATS methodology. Every chart can be switched to the unadjusted series or a year-over-year view.

Cadence

Released the Tuesday before the first Friday of each month, covering the month just ended — ahead of the federal jobs report. Recent months are revised as more payrolls settle, and every series downloads as CSV.