LibGuides: Find Social Sciences Data: Government Data and Statistics

Recommended Resources

Data and Statistics about the United States
Find data about the U.S., such as maps and population, demographic, and economic data.
Data.gov
The home of the U.S. Government’s open data.

Statistical Abstract of the United States
Unlimited users.
The Statistical Abstract of the United States is a compilation of social, political and economic statistics. The focus is on national data, but some tables cover regions, states, cities, and comparative international statistics. Each table identifies the source of the data. Tables can be downloaded in xls or pdf format.
Divided into broad sections such as Population, Health and Nutrition, Education, Foreign Commerce and Aid, Prices and many others, the database can be searched or browsed to retrieve results that can then be narrowed by source, geography, time period, subject, and other breakdowns.

City of Austin Open Data Portal
The portal provides easy access to open data about Austin, TX.

Social Explorer
Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Provides easy access to historical census data for the United States. Allows users to visually analyze and understand the demography of any part of the United States with access to the following:
- Interactive thematic maps of historical census data
- Customized reports for any chosen area or areas (including aggregates)
- Complete coverage of the United States, down to neighborhoods and streets
- Simple navigation buttons and a find tool make it easy and efficient to study neighborhoods
Users can examine geographic areas while selecting the type of data to be shown, such as population density or income level. The corresponding data tables are also available.

Google Search for Gov Stats

To quickly search for government statistics online, try a Google site search that only returns ".gov" results. For instance, if you are researching childhood obesity, try a Google search like this:

childhood obesity statistics site:gov

Use any URL suffix to limit to that type of website.

.edu
.org
.mil

Federal Statistical Research Data Centers

The University of Texas at Austin Research Data Center (UT Austin RDC) hosts a secure computing lab where qualified researchers with approved projects can perform statistical analyses using restricted access data sets hosted on the national RDC network maintained by the U. S. Census Bureau.