LibGuides: AMST 1001: What is American Studies? (Spring '25): Data and Statistics

Introduction

This is a small list of datasets and/or statistical tables on social difference available at the national and state level. Often these large scale surveys are conducted by and/or compiled by federal government agencies. You may see this data used by other organizations and researchers because of the large amount of resources required to conduct surveys on this scale.

Most states and some cities/counties have their own Open Data portals. This might be a good place to start for looking for local data & statistics on any number of the categories below. You can usually find them by searching for the state/city and "open data" in your favorite search engine - or try this list here (last updated April 2018, so it might not be 100% accurate). Open data portals will usually allow you to browse data sets by department, or you can search across everything they offer.

Federal Data alternatives

The resources below are a few trusted alternative sources of federal data.

"At PolicyMap, we are committed to providing uninterrupted access to the critical data you rely on. We proactively collect and preserve the most recent datasets from federal sources, ensuring they are integrated into our platform. Historic periods are maintained and available as well. Data that was recently removed by the federal government is and will always be, available in PolicyMap."

PolicyMap
Online data and mapping tool for creating custom reports of data related to demographics, real estate, health, jobs, the environment, education and more. Data comes from authoritative public and proprietary sources. It has thousands of indicators on demographics, the economy, housing, lending, quality of life, education, health, and more. Data is available at the neighborhood census block group in many cases, up to a national level, depending on the data.

Data Rescue Project
Serves "as a clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public US governmental data that are currently at risk. We want to know what is happening in the community so that we can coordinate focus."
End of Term Web Archive
"The End of Term Web Archive captures and saves U.S. Government websites at the end of presidential administrations. The EOT has thus far preserved websites from administration changes in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020."
CDC datasets uploaded before January 28th, 2025
"An archive of all CDC datasets uploaded to https://data.cdc.gov/browse before January 28th, 2025. Excludes corrupt datasets and data not publicly accessible."
Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, released by the Council on Environmental Quality in December 2024
"This is Version 2 of the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, released by the Council on Environmental Quality in December 2024. Although the tool remains unchanged, public access through the White House was discontinued on January 22, 2025. We re-created Version 2 and made it publicly accessible."
Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI)
Formed "in November 2016 to document and analyze changes to vulnerable federal environmental data and governance practices..."

Economic Inequity

Information for all 50 states

Poverty Data Tables - U.S. Census Bureau
Census Data Sources
See also the various ways to download Census data in the sidebar.

Ideas for more state-specific resources

KIDS COUNT Data Center
The KIDS COUNT index includes child-level indicators and rankings across four areas: economic well-being, health, education, and family/community. This is a compilation of statistics from external sources (e.g. U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Health Statistics, etc), with rankings created by the Population Reference Bureau.

Health

Information for all 50 states

CDC Wonder
CDC WONDER -- Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiolgic Research -- is a menu-driven system that makes the information resources of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) available to public health professionals and the public at large. It provides access to a wide array of public health information.
HealthData.gov
An official website of the US Department of Health and Human Services, HealthData.gov gives access to federal datasets related to health and hospitals, including extensive data on COVID-19 and Long COVID.
NCHS Public-Use Data Files
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) offers downloadable public-use data files through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) FTP file server. Users of this service have access to data sets, documentation, and questionnaires from NCHS surveys and data collection systems. Downloading instructions are available in “readme” files.

Ideas for more state-specific resources

Search for the website for the state’s department of health.

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps
The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program is a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The annual County Health Rankings measure vital health factors, including high school graduation rates, obesity, smoking, unemployment, access to healthy foods, the quality of air and water, income inequality, and teen births in nearly every county in America.
KIDS COUNT Data Center
The KIDS COUNT index includes child-level indicators and rankings across four areas: economic well-being, health, education, and family/community. This is a compilation of statistics from external sources (e.g. U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Health Statistics, etc), with rankings created by the Population Reference Bureau.

Housing and Homelessness

Information for all 50 states

Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR)
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) conducts this nation-wide survey of people experiencing homelessness. The Point-in-Time (PIT) estimates offer a snapshot of homelessness on a single night in late January.
American Housing Survey (AHS)
The AHS is sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The survey is the most comprehensive national housing survey in the United States.
HUD User Bibliographic Database
This database from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is dedicated to housing and community development issues. It contains more than 10,000 full-abstract citations to research reports, articles, books, monographs, and data sources in housing policy, building technology, economic development, urban planning, and related fields.

Ideas for more state-specific resources

Search for the website for the state’s department of housing.
Some universities may have research institutes dedicated to local housing/community planning that collect and/or analyze local data. One example is NYU's Furman Center.

Prisons and policing

Information for all 50 states

National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD)

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is a federal agency under the Department of Justice; that collects and creates creates data, surveys, and reports about inmate populations, prisons, expenditures, deaths in custody, policing, victims of crime, and more. The BJS site is somewhat confusing. Specific series and data sets of interest for studying trends in populations of incarcerated people, policing, and crime over time include:

the Prisoners series for prison populations
the Annual Survey of Jails and Census of Jails for local jail populations
the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS); see also Arrest Data Analysis Tool (tables and figures of arrest data from 1980 onward, with national arrest estimates, customized either by age and sex or by age group and race; this tool is produced from underlying data from this NCVS)
the Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS) - detailed information on the characteristics of a nationally representative sample of persons who had some type of contact with police during the year, including those who contacted the police to report a crime or were pulled over in a traffic stop

Sentencing Project: State Contacts
The Sentencing Project has a list of state contact organizations which may publish their own reports.

Ideas for more state-specific resources

Search for the website for the state’s department of corrections.

War/military

Information for all 50 states

DoD Personnel, Workforce Reports & Publications
Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), under the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OUSD), maintains this site. Users may view and print DoD Personnel and U.S. Military casualty statistics, as well as, historical DoD procurement reports and data files. For the Military and Civilian Personnel by Service/Agency by State/Country Reports, the DMDC data only reflects personnel who are permanently assigned for duty at these locations. Starting in December 2017, the table no longer includes personnel on temporary duty, or deployed in support of contingency operations.

Ideas for more state-specific resources

War Resisters League Local Chapters, Affiliates and Contacts
It's possible that local branches of the War Resisters League (WRL) may monitor and analyze local data on military bases, expenditures, veterans affairs, etc.

Hunger

Information for all 50 states

Food Security in the U.S. - USDA data products
Scroll down a little bit to see all United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service
datasets related to food security.
State of the States: Profiles of Hunger, Poverty, and Federal Nutrition Programs
From the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), this is a compilation of relevant data points from publicly available surveys such as those run by the USDA.

Ideas for more state-specific resources

Search for the website for the state’s department of agriculture.

Employment

Information for all 50 states

BLS - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The BLS collects a lot of information about a lot of economic indicators. Look for Subjects - Employment or Unemployment for relevant content.
U.S. Census Bureau - Employment
The U.S. Census Bureau collects data that measure the state of the nation's workforce, including employment and unemployment levels, as well as weeks and hours worked.

Ideas for more state-specific resources

Search for the website for the state’s department of labor.

AFL-CIO State Federations and Central Labor Councils
State federations and central labor councils may have reports and other information about employment conditions in the state you are researching.

Education/literacy

Information for all 50 states

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) State-level statistics
This is a list of the various sources of NCES information available on a state level.
State and County Estimates of Low Literacy
From the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

Ideas for more state-specific resources

Search for the website for the state’s department of education.

KIDS COUNT Data Center
The KIDS COUNT index includes child-level indicators and rankings across four areas: economic well-being, health, education, and family/community. This is a compilation of statistics from external sources (e.g. U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Health Statistics, etc), with rankings created by the Population Reference Bureau.

AMST 1001: What is American Studies? (Spring '25)

Census Data Sources

ERC

Director of TLRS

Introduction

Federal Data alternatives

Economic Inequity

Health

Housing and Homelessness

Prisons and policing

War/military

Hunger

Employment

Education/literacy