World Statistics Day

Statistics of Income Division (SOI)

The Statistics of Income Division of the Internal Revenue Service was founded in 1916 to publish information about the operation of the internal revenue laws. It issued its first report in 1918, and throughout its almost 95 years of continuous service, the data it collects from the returns of individuals, businesses, tax-exempt organizations, and many other specialty areas of taxation have had a significant impact on the economic and tax policy of the United States.

Microdata produced by the division also are used to support macroeconomic estimates of the U.S. economy and major economic surveys. The division makes data available to the public through regular printed publications; special tabulations; and TaxStats, which currently hosts more than 8,500 articles and tables. Also available are several microdata public-use files, including data on tax-exempt organizations, which are made available to the public by law, and summary data from individual income tax returns that have been carefully masked to prevent disclosure of individual taxpayer information.

Throughout its history, the division has been a leader in advancing statistical methodology and data-collection technology. In the 1920s, SOI was one of the first federal statistical offices to implement stratified random sampling. As an early adopter of modern computing technology, SOI implemented machine tabulation of data in 1928 and purchased its first UNIVAC computer in 1954.

SOI continues to modernize its tax data-collection systems, expand program content, and implement new studies. Currently, the division is playing an important role by collecting and disseminating the statistics needed to monitor and evaluate the tax-related provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act of 2010, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PDF).

National Science Foundation (NSF)

The National Science Foundation is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government created by Congress “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…” The Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS), a federal statistical agency within NSF, plays a vital role in this effort by continuously collecting and reporting key statistics describing the state of science and engineering in the United States. Recent accomplishments and key activities include the following:

• Science and Engineering Indicators 2010. This comprehensive document reports on the vitality of America’s science and engineering enterprise to the president, Congress, and the nation. SRS analysts bring together data collected by the division and other national and international sources on topics such as K–12 through doctoral education in science, math, and engineering; the science and engineering work force; domestic and international research and development funding, performance, and outputs; the production and trade of knowledge-intensive services and high-technology goods; public knowledge of and attitudes toward science and engineering; and a range of indicators of state-level science and engineering activities.
• Business R&D and Innovation Survey. In 2010, data from the new Business R&D and Innovation Survey was released, providing an updated view of U.S. research and development activity and new information and insight into worldwide sales and research and development expenditures, domestic and worldwide employment, and innovation activities.
• SRS is developing a secure, collaborative data access facility so all researchers accessing its science and engineering data can meet in a virtual environment to share their research and collaborate with SRS on data enhancements. SRS also has fielded a comprehensive multi-year project to gather in-depth information about postdoctoral researchers and early career researchers in the United States across a variety of employment sectors.

U.S. Census Bureau

The history of the U.S. Census Bureau is a history of ever-increasing demands for information and meeting those demands with continual technical innovation and statistical breakthroughs, ranging from punch cards to sampling to computerized data processing.

In 1890, it was keypunch cards, which ushered in an era of business machines, tabulators, and cash registers for the nation. In 1950, UNIVAC I, the first civilian-use mainframe electronic computer, made its debut—and out flowed the computer age. In 2000, for the first time, the data-capture process used optical scanners that could read hand printing to process the millions of questionnaires returned by mail or filled out by enumerators.

The development by the Census Bureau of geographic base files in the 1970s and the TIGER system in the 1980s laid the groundwork for today’s geographic information system industry. In 2010, the Census Bureau realigned street center lines and used hand-held computers to capture GPS coordinates for each address, making the census’s geographic tabulations more accurate.

As the science of statistics advanced, the Census Bureau changed and updated its methodology, including the introduction in 1940 of statistical sampling in a population census. The 2010 census saw the most dramatic shift in the Census Bureau’s data-collection process in decades. The successful launch of the American Community Survey, which is administered continuously throughout the decade, eliminated the long-form sample questionnaire from the census, giving the nation more frequent and timely data.

Since the 2000 census, the U.S. Census Bureau has used the Internet to give millions more data users the tools they need to construct a digital picture of America, down to any one of 7 million census blocks. In 2010, the Census Bureau engaged the public online through social media to promote participation and, for the first time, gave local residents and leaders the ability to monitor daily how their communities were responding by mail.