Services are functions such as repairing, restoring, and facilitating that maintain or improve the quality of a product but are not physical products themselves. Services also include activities such as education, health and personal care, entertainment, and protective services that are designed to enhance the standard of living and quality of life. In the context of the National Income and Product Accounts as reported here, "services” refers to the activities of private businesses and public agencies that are engaged in these maintenance and enhancement activities. Utilities are services or commodities provided by the government or by government-regulated entities. The major utilities are communications, electricity, natural gas, running water, sanitary services, and refuse collection.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) classifies seventeen major economic sectors under the broad heading of Service Sector. It classifies Utilities under the broad heading of Secondary Sector. For a full listing of the NAICS system, see the Introduction to Part D.

Because of their size and complexity, statistics for a number of services and utilities are presented as separate chapters of Historical Statistics of the United States. The most notable of these are health care (Chapter Bd), social assistance (Chapter Bf), educational services (Chapter Bc), finance and insurance (Chapter Cj), public administration (Chapter Ea), communications (Chapter Dg), and electric and natural gas utilities (Chapter Db). See the Introduction to Part D for a concordance between the official list of the service and utilities sectors and the chapters of Historical Statistics of the United States.

This chapter presents a global discussion of the service sector by Thomas Weiss, followed by a similar discussion of the utilities sector by Susan Carter. The data displayed in the accompanying tables refer to the global definitions of these sectors (and thus span and serve to summarize material scattered across many chapters) and provide details on the industries and activities not elsewhere presented.