One of the largest archives of federal, state, and local government data in the United States.
We collect public data so that we can answer questions on behalf of those records. Academics and businesses bring us the question. We locate the dataset, the table, and the row.
We started with the Census.
Ask the Census began as a small service that did one thing: dig into U.S. Census data on behalf of people who needed answers. Researchers, journalists, local government staff, and businesses would send us a question — how many households in this tract speak a language other than English at home? — and we would return the number, the table, and the year.
Over the years, the questions kept pulling us beyond the Census. People wanted vital records from state health departments. Employment counts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Building permits from city planning offices. Property assessments from county tax rolls. Each new agency, each new dataset, became part of the archive.
Today we hold one of the largest collections of federal, state, and local government data in the United States. The Census is still at the core. Everything else grew up around it.
What we hold.
The archive spans three levels of government and roughly two centuries of records. We do not aggregate, model, or smooth values. Each holding traces back to a primary release from the agency that collected it.
| Level | Categories | Earliest |
|---|---|---|
| Federal Census Bureau, BLS, BEA, IRS, HUD, CDC, USGS, USDA. | Population & housing · Employment & wages · Income & GDP · Migration · Vital statistics · Agriculture | 1790 |
| State Health departments, labor agencies, education departments, tax authorities, secretaries of state. | Vital records · Educational attainment · Unemployment claims · Business filings · Voter file summaries | 1850 |
| County & municipal Assessors, recorders, planning departments, election boards, school districts. | Property assessments · Deeds & transfers · Building permits · Land use · Election results · Enrollment | 1900 |
| Historical Digitized schedules, ledgers, and bulletins acquired from the National Archives and state archives. | Population schedules · Industrial schedules · Agricultural schedules · Ship manifests | 1790 |
To help academics and businesses answer questions about public data.
Public data are technically available to everyone and practically available to almost no one. The datasets are large, the column names are cryptic, and the documentation is scattered across decades of agency releases. We make the data accessible.
For academics.
Replicable, citable data extractions for working papers, dissertations, and peer-reviewed studies. Every result includes the source dataset, year, table, and retrieval SQL.
For businesses.
Market sizing, demographic analysis, real-estate research, and regulatory diligence drawn from the same primary sources government agencies use themselves.
For journalists & civic staff.
We answer the specific question your story or your policy memo actually requires — with the citation footnote already written.
Interested in searching the archives?
Send a note to our curator with the question you would like answered, the geography you care about, and the period of interest. We will reply with what we hold, what it would take to retrieve it, and any caveats that apply.
joe@emisonian.com