Photo by NASA. Aaron R. Williams and Claire McKay Bowen One of our favorite data sources is weekly unemployment insurance (UI) claims from the Department of Labor. The data demonstrate the value of administrative data… Maximizing the Value of State Administrative Data Requires Leadership
Photo by Stephen Dawson. Barry Johnson In our last post, we discussed the origin and evolution of federal statistics and noted that, as survey response rates have declined and user expectations have evolved, agencies are… New Data Sources to Improve Federal Statistics
2025 was a challenging year for public data, but the deep engagement of the data user community has been a silver lining. As threats to public data grew, so did data user engagement. We witnessed… APDU 2025 by the numbers…
Photo by U.S. Census Bureau. Barry Johnson In previous posts, we’ve raised the point that federal statistics are the essential—though often unrecognized—ingredients that impact all aspects of our lives: from determining whether we need a… Where Do Official Statistics Come From?
Photo by Markus Spiske. Claire McKay Bowen and Aaron R. Williams The collection of data that fuels everything from advanced research to everyday decision making is, by many measures, underappreciated and insufficiently rewarded. In research,… Two Ideas to Support and Reward Data Collectors
Photo by Xi Lipton. Claire McKay Bowen and Aaron R. Williams Government data shape and improve our lives from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep. Here’s a quick look… A Day in the Life with Federal Government Data
Photo by Alexey Demidov Aaron R. Williams and Claire McKay Bowen Deciphering the economy is difficult even under ideal circumstances. “Monetary policy is like driving while looking through the rearview mirror” is a popular expression… Driving While Looking Through a Shattered Rearview Mirror
By Claire McKay Bowen and Aaron R. Williams Image from https://unsplash.com/photos/colored-pencil-lined-up-on-top-of-white-surface-l3N9Q27zULw. When we take a bite of cake, we often focus on its presentation, decoration, texture, or flavor. Rarely do we think about the ingredients… Eggs Don’t Grow on Trees and Neither Does Data: How to Teach K-12 Students Where Data Comes From
By Claire McKay Bowen and Aaron R. WilliamsImage by Jeremy SeemanBlog is cross posted with Data Rescue Project. Can you answer these questions? If you struggle to answer any of these, you are not alone.… The Forgotten Egg: The Importance of Public Federal Data in the United States
Quick Summary of the Report The federal statistical system has been struggling with budget constraints for several years. In the first six months of 2025 threats to the integrity of the system increased substantially, including… 2025 Data Integrity Summit Report
The moment many of us in the public data community have feared has come to pass: the President has fired the head of a federal statistical agency because the data are politically inconvenient. Today President… APDU Statement on Firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner