Article by Rekha Balu and William J. Congdon: “Federal economic data and statistics are essential for both public and private sector decisionmakers across the United States. They make it possible to monitor and understand the performance of the economy, craft public policy to effectively address challenges facing households and the nation, and make informed business and financial decisions. Their collective value to the users of these data—from policymakers to businesses to researchers—is immense.
Changing needs, and the need for changing data
At the same time, the needs of data users are evolving. Policymakers and businesses increasingly demand more timely, localized, and detailed information. Economic research continues to identify new relationships and concepts that are important for data to capture, and for statistical series to incorporate and reflect.
Most of all, economic data and statistics require constant innovation to keep pace with a dynamic and changing economy. Factors like the rise of artificial intelligence, gig work, digital assets, and increasingly complex sources of income and wealth can pose challenges for traditional economic data. Consider examples that arise across four key domains of economic data: employment, prices, income, and wealth:
Employment data: Understanding evolving labor markets
Federal employment statistics are among the most widely referenced economic indicators. These data—tracking labor market conditions, measuring job growth, calculating the unemployment rate, observing trends in and the distribution of wages across workers, and so on—are closely followed by policymakers, financial markets, researchers, voters, and the media…(More)“.
