Date of Publication :31st July 2023

Abstract: The U.S. Department of Census released data from their 2021 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM). The Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) provides sample estimates of statistics for all manufacturing establishments. The ASM provides the best current measure of current U.S. manufacturing industry outputs, inputs, and operating status. Based upon analysis of the data from 2018, using 2019 as a base year since it was before the start of the pandemic, percentage changes for 2020 and 2021 were calculated in the manufacturing data. Analysis of these percentage changes over this time period show that many widely held beliefs about the severe negative impact on manufacturing activity and inventories in 2020 and 2021 are not supported by the actual data. A few beliefs were actually supported based upon analysis of these percentage changes.

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