What Protects the Autonomy of the Federal Statistical Agencies? An Assessment of the Procedures in Place to Protect the Independence and Objectivity of Official U.S. Statistics

Figures & data

Table 1 Budget and authorized staff levels, principal federal statistical agencies, FY2019-2020.

	Budget $M		Staff Size (authorized)
Agency	FY19	FY20	FY19	FY20
Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of Commerce	$101	$108	489	501
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Department of Justice	43	43	55	49
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor	615	628	1989	1989
Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Department of Transportation	26	26	55	60
U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce	3821	7558	6858	6328
Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy	125	127	368	357
Economic Research Service, Department of Agriculture	87	85	321	158
National Agricultural Statistics Service, Department of Agriculture	175	180	1033	1033
National Center for Education Statistics, Department of Education	261	264	95	95
National Center for Health Statistics, Department of Health and Human Services	160	160	484	470
National Center for Science & Engineering Statistics, National Science Foundation	64	65	56	56
Office of Research, Evaluation, & Statistics, Social Security Administration	35	39	79	79
Statistics of Income Division, IRS, Department of the Treasury	36	35	135	139

Source: see Office of Management and Budget (2020) and Pierson (2021) for staff, and multiple sources for budgets. Note: See National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021, Appendix B), for a fuller picture of the complexity of the federal statistical system, which includes not only the principal agencies, the chief statistician’s office, and the ICSP, but also recognized statistical units, other statistical programs, and statistical officials in every cabinet department.

Fig. 1 The positive-feedback cycle linking professional autonomy and data usage

Table 2 Autonomy protections for federal statistical agencies.

Autonomy Measure	Statistical Policy Directive No. 1/ Evidence Act Protections for All Agencies	Additional Statutory Protections for Specific Agencies
		BTS	EIA	BJS	Census
(1) Data Collection & Analysis	YES	STRONG	STRONG
(2) Systems	YES	INTERMEDIATE
(3) Publication	YES	STRONG	STRONG
(4) Staffing	YES (HIRING); NO (STAFFING LEVELS)	WEAK (HIRING)	STRONG		WEAK
(5) Budget	NO	WEAK
(6) Contracting	NO	WEAK		STRONG

NOTE: See text for discussion of additional statutory protections for specific agencies. Empty cells represent measures for which we could find no specific protections.

Office of Management and Budget. (2020), “Statistical Programs of the United States Government,” available at https://www.whitehouse. gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/statistical-programs-20192020.pdf

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Pierson, S. (2021), “Federal Statistical Agencies – budgets since FY03,” Available at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_xt8oI2neZy TwaZvtyQOtujzuHnjemZPwPuYVsEELr0/edit#gid=0

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021), Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency (7th ed), eds. C. F. Citro, and B. A. Harris-Kojetin, Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

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