Data & Statistics for Journalists: Government (U.S.)

U.S. federal government data, of course, covers all the topics on the left and more. This page gathers many data sources not already linked on one of the pages at the right. These data sources are organized by government agency. Information for this page was provided by Journalists' Resource & the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS).

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

Department of Agriculture

U.S. Army

Department of Commerce (DoC)

• Foreign direct investments in the United States. Data on the activities of minority- and majority-owned U.S. affiliates of multinational enterprises, including sales, assets and employment via Bureau of Economic Analysis
• U.S. Gross Domestic Product data: GDP in current and constant dollars, personal income and spending, corporate profits and government receipts and expenditures, via Bureau of Economic Analysis
• Economic Development Administration Tools for Economic Development
• Census Business and Economy Data: Includes business formation, growth and competition, information on workers, employers and jobs, and business patterns by county and zip code; Useful for studying the economic activity of small areas, analyzing economic changes over time, judging market potential, sales-program effectiveness and budgeting.
• International Trade Administration (ITA): Includes data on U.S. exporting companies, National, State, and Metropolitian trade data, economic research, and tariffs
  • Employment and Trade Data:  Includes monthly and annual arrivals in the United States; For immigration data, see the DHS. Last updated December 2017.
  • International Air Travel Statistics (form I-92) program data covers arrival by air into the United States.
• National Climate Data Center: National climate and historic weather data. Information on the climate of the United States by location and time of year as well as extreme events, including heat waves, droughts, tornadoes, and hurricanes.
• National Marine Fisheries Service Data: Recreational fisheries statistics or Commercial fisheries statistics. Also includes information on marine animals, ecosystems, stock assessments and the economic aspects of fishing.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

• Credit card agreement database. A database of credit-card agreements from more than 300 issuers, searchable by the name of the issuer or by the text within the agreement.
• Consumer complaint database. Information about the subject and date of the financial-product complaint and the company’s response; no personal data is shared. The entire dataset can be downloaded and an API is available.

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

Injury and death statistics. Figures on a wide range of consumer goods, including amusement rides, ATVs, fireworks, nursery products and children’s outdoor equipment, home furnishings and fixtures, scooters, trampolines and toys. Data is also available on carbon monoxide deaths, drownings, lead poisoning, electrocutions, residential fires, senior hazards, emergency room injuries, sports injuries, and pediatric poisoning.

Department of Energy (DoE)

• Energy Information Administration (EIA)
  • Energy prices data, including crude oil and natural gas prices, oil imports, gasoline and diesel prices, refiner prices of residual fuel oil, retail prices of electricity.
  • Crude oil production and stocks data covers petroleum and other liquid fuels.
  • Renewable energy market data, released monthly in PDF form, shows short- and long-term trends in production and consumption of renewable energy as compared to fossil fuels and nuclear, in both graphical and tabular form. Data is divided by source and sector.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

• Air quality data. Information on air quality collected at outdoor monitors across the United States, both as reports and data visualizations. There’s also an interactive map from which data can be downloaded.
• Enforcement dockets data contains information on administrative penalty cases filed by the EPA regions and headquarters. Dockets can be searched by region, year and statute.
• Envirofacts Interface. Searchable database of information on facilities registered with the Federal Enforcement and Compliance (FE&C) and holding NPDES permits. Can be searched by facility name, permit number, location, industrial classification and chemicals. All states are searchable except Wyoming.
• Toxics Release Inventory Program
  • The Chemical Substance Inventory provides access to a wide range of information on risk assessment, toxic releases, pesticides, and other chemical-related questions. Also see the Agency for Substances and Disease Registry (ASDR) section below.
• Superfund Site Information Database. Information on current hazardous-waste sites, potential sites and remedial activities in the United States.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

• Enforcement and litigation statistics on employment discrimination. Tabular data on employment-discrimination charges and resolutions, from 2009 to 2013. The charges can be explored by issue — including race, equal pay, national origin, religion, gender — and statute.

Federal Court System

• Bankruptcy statistics, including personal and business filings as well as abuse protection and Consumer Protection Act figures.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

• Reports and Data. Find data, tools and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications and design data visualizations.

Fish and Wildlife Services

• National Wetlands Inventory. Information, fact sheets and mapping services on U.S. wetlands.

General Services Administration (GSA)

• Federal procurement report data. Can be used for “geographical analysis, market analysis, and analysis of the impact of the congressional and presidential initiatives in socio-economic areas such as small business.”
• Federal Subaward Reporting System (FSRS) data. Part of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), this system gathers data from prime awardees on the subcontracts they in turn award. USAspending also has information on prime awards and subawards, and can show trends over time.
• Small Business Goaling Report. Aggregate data on the amount, actions, and percentages for small-business contracts. Information includes amounts and percentages for businesses owned by veterans, the disabled and women, as well as those in HUBZones.

Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)

• Agency for Substances and Disease Registry (ASTDR)
  • Toxic Substances Portal Toxicological Information, sites and facilities data, public health resource information and the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI).
  • National Toxic Substance Incidents Program.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  • Surveillance Resource Center on infectious and chronic disease, diabetes, disabilities, environmental health, risky behavior, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, injury, maternal and child health, adolescent health, and occupational safety.
  • United States Cancer Statistics. Federal statistics on cancer incidence and mortality from 2007 to 2011, produced by the CDC and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The site provides graphical information as well as map.
  • Community Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics, Total and percentage of the U.S. population covered, number of community water systems.
• Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
  • Center for Medicare & Medicaid Claims Data, anonomized and available in CSV format. 
  • National health expenditures data. Information on personal health care (PHC) spending by type of good or service and source of funding in five age groups and for males and females. You can also get figures for state health expenditures and business, household and government spending on health care.
  • Provider of service data. Contains data on the characteristics of hospitals and other health care facilities, including their location and type of Medicare services provided.
• National Center for Health Statistics vital statistics data, including births, deaths, marriages and divorces.
• Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) administrative records, including active and closed cases.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

• Immigration Data & Statistics. Reports on the number and characteristics of those admitted to the United States as refugees or granted asylum; information on the apprehension, detention and return of non-residents; and non-immigrant admissions.

Department of Interior

• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): Biodiversity and species data. Interactive map with continuously updated records of the occurrence of plants and animals in the United States. You can search by both common and scientific name, and zoom in to specific locations.
  • USGS: Maps and data products

- See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/skills/research/websites-u-s-federal-government-administrative-datasets#sthash.tUIYKC3G.dpuf

Department of Justice (DoJ)

• Bureau of Prisons (BoP): Inmate, population and staff statistics. Interactive graphics on key federal criminal-justice statistics, including inmate ethnicity, gender, offense and sentence.
• Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): Court statistics project data. Details the operation of state court systems, with information on court structure, jurisdiction, caseload volume and trends.
• BJS: Federal Justice Statistics Program data, including the annual workload, activities and outcomes of federal criminal cases
• BJS: Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS): Data from more than 3,000 state and local law-enforcement agencies; information includes agency responsibilities, expenditures, job functions; salaries, special pay and demographics of officers; weapons and armor policies; education and training requirements; computers and information systems; and vehicles, special units, and community policing activities.
• BJS: National Corrections Reporting Program data: Annual data on prison admissions and releases, and year-end custody populations and on parole entries and discharges.
• BJS: National Incident-Based Reporting System data. Information on crimes known to authorities, including homicides and manslaughter, robberies, assault and arson.
• BJS: National Prisoner Statistics Program data. Annual national and state-level data on the number of prisoners in state and federal prison facilities. Reports are released in PDF and text-file format, and data in CSV format.
• Federal Bureau of Investigation: Uniform Crime Reports data. Wide range of crime-related data, publications and resources. Source data comes from more than 18,000 federal, state, county, city, tribal and university/college agencies participating in the program.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

• Urban Landsat. The Cities from Space dataset contains images of 66 urban areas and raw data for 28.

Patent and Trademark Office

• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent data. Organized by geographic origin, organization, technology and inventor. Historical and year-end statistics are also available.

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

• Veterans Benefits Administration reports. Status reports on key VA statistics, including claims inventory, backlog and accuracy.