Methodology and sources

Where the data comes from

We read data directly from the U.S. Treasury’s Fiscal Data service, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s FRED database, which republishes series from BEA, BLS, the Federal Reserve Board, Freddie Mac, FHFA, EIA and others without modification. Each page names its exact series and links to it.

How often it updates

The site checks its sources every 30 minutes. Most series are published monthly or quarterly, so the number you see changes only when the agency releases a new one. The date beside every figure is the period it describes, not the day we fetched it.

When a source is down

If an agency’s server doesn’t respond, we keep showing the last figure we successfully downloaded and label it “stored” rather than presenting it as current. A small number of values have a built-in fallback for a site’s very first run; those are labeled “snapshot.” We never fill gaps with estimates.

Revisions

Agencies revise past data, sometimes substantially (GDP and state unemployment rates especially). Charts always show the latest vintage, so a past value here may differ from what was first reported. Archived first releases are available on ALFRED.

Our own calculations

Inflation-adjusted views convert dollars to the latest month’s dollars with the CPI-U (all items, seasonally adjusted). Annual series use the calendar-year average CPI.

Share of GDP divides by nominal GDP (BEA, seasonally adjusted annual rate) for the same quarter or year, unless an official ratio exists, in which case we use that.

Change from a year earlier compares the latest observation with the one closest to twelve months before it.

The household dollar is the BEA personal saving rate expressed in cents per dollar of disposable personal income. Disposable income is already after taxes, so taxes are not subtracted again.

The debt clock starts from the latest official Treasury Debt to the Penny figure and advances at the average daily change over the previous month of Treasury business days. The running figure is an animation of that pace, not an official number; the official figure and its date are always shown beside it.

Debt per household and per person divide total public debt by the Census Bureau’s household count and BEA population estimate. They are a sense of scale, not anyone’s bill.

The Household Pressure Index is our experimental composite. Its formula, a backtest since 2005, and where it falls short are on its own page.

Presidential terms on budget charts are hidden by default and can be switched on. Spending and tax law are set by Congress and the President together, and many budget changes reflect conditions inherited from earlier years.

Changelog