ALFRED (Archival Federal Reserve Economic Data), a database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Its value is that one can find data as it was known at a particular moment in time, which may present a very different picture of the economy to policymakers than the one shown in more recent data, which may have been heavily revised.
Bureau of Economic Analysis, a Commerce Department bureau responsible for calculating the gross domestic product.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, the original source of all data related to inflation, unemployment, wages and compensation, productivity and related data.
Census Bureau, the central source for data related to population, income, poverty and related topics. Much of the data is available for states, metropolitan areas and even local communities. Every edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States is available, as well as the 1976 edition of the Historical Statistics of the United States.
Conference Board Total Economy Database, an invaluable source of internationally comparable data linked to the late economist Angus Maddison’s database, with calculations going back more than 2000 years for per capita GDP and other economic data.
Congressional Budget Office, the best source for federal budget data and the latest projections.
Energy Information Administration, the basic source for all energy-related data including petroleum, natural gas, electricity, coal and alternative fuels. Also an excellent source of international energy data.
Federal Reserve Board, the basic source for data on the money supply, industrial production, capacity utilization and the flow of funds.
FedStats, a search engine that allows people to look for government data across departments and agencies.
FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research), another database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis with PDF files of various historical documents and statistical publications such as every issue of the Economic Report of the President and every important document cited in the first volume of Allan Meltzer’s history of the Federal Reserve.
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), yet another web site maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Over 500 data series available; especially valuable for money supply, interest rates and other financial data. All data can be downloaded in chart form.
FreeLunch.com, a web site maintained by Moody’s Economy.com. Among the available data sets that are otherwise difficult to find: foreign and U.S. stock market indexes on a daily basis, exchange rates, crime rates, educational attainment, number of people on food stamps, a wide variety of real estate statistics, and all the usual macroeconomic data such as GDP.
Internal Revenue Service, key source for data on various federal taxes.
MeasuringWorth, an invaluable calculator for comparing prices over long periods of time using a variety of price indexes. The site also maintains long data series for interest rates, exchange rates, and the price of gold.
National Bureau of Economic Research, a private group tasked with responsibility for determining the beginning and ending dates of business cycles, which can be found here. There are also data sets available that have been compiled by NBER scholars.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an organization of major industrialized countries that calculates internationally comparable data on a variety of indicators for all its member countries. It’s especially valuable for tax and health data.
Social Security Administration, source for data on Social Security and the elderly population. Especially valuable is its annual statistical supplement.
Bruce Bartlett is an American historian and columnist who focuses on the intersection between politics and economics. He blogs daily and writes a weekly column at The Fiscal Times. Read his most recent column here. Bartlett has written for Forbes Magazine and Creators Syndicate, and his work is informed by many years in government, including as a senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House. He is the author of seven books including the New York Times best-seller, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, 2006).