A new U.S. Census Bureau survey of the nation’s entrepreneurs puts Greater Philadelphia behind several other metro regions on a number of key economic growth indicators, writes Fabiola Cineas for Philadelphia Magazine.

Philly lags behind America’s other major regions for the number of new businesses in the area and for its total of minority- and female-owned businesses.

According to a statement from the U.S. Census Bureau, its inaugural Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs was conducted to provide a “timely, more frequent socio-economic portrait of the nation’s employer businesses by gender, ethnicity, race, and veteran status.”

Census Bureau director John H. Thompson noted that the survey is based on 290,000 respondents and data collected in 2014.

“This is the first time the Census Bureau is making statistics available on every year that show a portrait of America’s business owners, providing vital information to understanding the state of our economy,” said Thompson.

“Understanding business startups is critical for developing a deeper understanding of job flows and productivity dynamics,” Census Bureau researchers Lucia Foster and Patrice Norman wrote in a paper accompanying the survey.

Click here to read more about the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs from Philadelphia Magazine.