The federal government has a mandate to collect and analyze data to satisfy legal requirements and emerging national needs.

There is no one single index to all federal statistics, check Find Data and Statistics from the Government. Individual agencies often publish their own data which can be found by searching their own web sites or the American Statistics Index.

Bureau of Census, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and U.S. Dept. of Labor are the three agencies that supply the most used data in the United States.

United States has had a census every ten years since 1790 (Decennial census of population and housing).

Decennial census data are outdated by the time they are published, an ongoing American Community Survey (ACS) provides more detailed and current demographic profiles on an annual basis.

Social Explorer contains data from 1790 to present and user can generate maps and reports by location and demographic variables.

Starting in July 2019, data.census.gov is the main access point for recent census. 

There are other U.S.censuses besides the population and housing census:

• Economic Census (conducted every five years): including Manufacturing census, Mining census, Construction data, Transporting census, Retail trade, Whole-sale trade and etc.
• Census of Agriculture (conducted every 5 years)
• Census of Governments (conducted every 5 years) focuses on state and local governments.