Let My Data Go

Computer punch cardComputer punch card, originally uploaded by Mirandala

Big Media Matt makes comments about low quality US data:

Every once in a while I toy with the thesis that someone ought to make a big deal about the fact that a lot of the standard statistical data about the United States that we track is of a kind of low quality. One noteworthy example is the poverty rate formula, which is basically nonsense.

There are three legs which make up the iron-triangle of good research data:

  1. High quality data,
  2. Easily accessible data, and
  3. Extensible data in usable formats

The amount of work I put into finding the correct, and congruent, data for my Comparative Analysis of NYC & Washington DC’s Area, Population, Density & Average Income was enormous. While different governmental agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget create standards upon which different agencies collect and report data, finding that data was quite an undertaking. At least there is Fedstats.gov, which as quite the collection of data sets which most are downloadable in multiple formats.
It would be very helpful if the State and Local municipalities followed the US Government’s lead on this and open up their data sets.