FEDERAL STATISTICAL AGENCIES AND UNITS
THE U.S. government distributes responsibility for collecting the necessary data to generate statistics for public use among a set of agencies and organizational units in the executive branch. A federal statistical agency or unit is defined in law (most recently by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, hereafter the Evidence Act, see Appendix A) as follows:
An agency or organizational unit of the executive branch whose activities are predominantly the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of information for statistical purposes.13
Statistical agencies and units must be recognized as such by the director of the OMB. At present, there are 13 principal statistical agencies located in cabinet departments and independent agencies, and there are also several smaller, more focused recognized statistical units (see Appendix B). In addition, many program, policy, and research agencies have sizeable statistical activities. The U.S. government developed its decentralized statistical system over time, so that today separate agencies have responsibility for labor statistics, justice statistics, education statistics, health statistics, and other subject-specific statistics. The Evidence Act required the appointment of a “Statistical Official” in every cabinet department and independent agency, with heads of the principal
___________________
13 44 USC 3561(11).
statistcal agencies to fill that role in their departments.14 The federal statistical agencies and units are listed and described in Appendix B.
The Evidence Act, incorporating the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002, also distinguished between statistical and nonstatistical purposes. Using information for a statistical purpose includes
description, estimation, or analysis of the characteristics of groups, without identifying the individuals or organizations that comprise such groups; and includes the development, implementation, or maintenance of methods, technical or administrative procedures, or information resources that support the [statistical] purpose.15
In contrast, a nonstatistical purpose is defined as using data in identifiable form for such purposes as “administrative, regulatory, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or other purpose that affects the rights, privileges, and benefits of a particular, identifiable respondent.”16
As an example, consider information that might be collected on a person’s income by a federal agency. A statistical agency or unit would only collect and use that information to compute statistics such as median income, or the percentage of families below the poverty line, or the percentage eligible for supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP or food stamps) benefits. A program agency might collect and use that information to determine whether that individual or family was eligible to receive SNAP or other benefits, and then grant or deny those benefits based upon that information. This latter use would be a nonstatistical purpose, and statistical agencies are generally prohibited by law to use their data in this manner.
Federal statistical agencies and units have important statutory responsibilities to
- produce and disseminate relevant and timely statistical information;
- conduct credible and accurate statistical activities;
- conduct objective statistical activities; and
___________________
14 The Evidence Act applies to the 24 agencies with Chief Financial Officers.
15 44 USC 3561(12).
16 44 USC 3561(8)(a).
- protect the trust of information providers by ensuring the confidentiality and exclusive statistical use of their responses.17
These responsibilities were codified from OMB Statistical Policy Directive No. 1 as part of the Evidence Act. The passage of this law, based on the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking (2017), has directly affected the role of statistical agencies within their departments. It has given them and their heads (as Statistical Officials for their departments) new responsibilities and opportunities related to the statistical use of data for providing evidence for program evaluation, working in many departments and agencies with the new positions of Chief Data Officers and Chief Evaluation Officers.
Because the Evidence Act requires implementing regulations and guidance from OMB, only some of which have been issued as of the writing of this volume (see Appendix A), many details and relationships among the new officers with the statistical agency heads are yet to be determined. To achieve the long-term goals of greater use of government administrative and survey data for statistical purposes and for the public good, the broader statistical, research, and evaluation communities will need to come together in a productive dialogue regarding the appropriate principles and practices for these expanding statistical and evaluation activities and the programs and units within which they are occurring.
___________________
17 44 USC 3563(a)(1).
This page intentionally left blank.
