    [Analytical Perspectives]
    [Special Analyses and Presentations]
    [11. Strengthening Federal Statistics]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                      11.  STRENGTHENING FEDERAL STATISTICS

      Our economy's complexity, growth, and rapid structural changes require
    that public and private leaders have unbiased, relevant information on
    which to base their decisions. Data on real Gross Domestic Product
    (GDP), the Consumer Price Index (CPI), and the trade deficit, for
    example, have a major impact on government spending, budget projections,
    and the allocation of Federal funds. They also are critical inputs to
    monetary, fiscal, trade, and regulatory policy. Economic data, such as
    measures of price change, have as well a significant influence on
    interest rates and cost-of-living adjustments that affect every American
    who runs a business, saves for retirement, or obtains a mortgage.
      Similarly, timely, comparable data on the characteristics of the U.S.
    population are essential to monitor societal changes. Of great import in
    2002 will be the continuing delivery of Census 2000 data products used
    to allocate locally each year nearly $200 billion in Federal funds. In
    recognition of its significance and in response to concerns about early
    planning and the quality of long-form data, the Census Bureau proposes
    to streamline the very complex decennial census process and to actively
    seek opportunities to innovate. The plan for the next decade is to
    completely reengineer the 2010 Census as part of a strategy to develop a
    more systematic, integrated, building-block approach for decennial and
    demographic data collection. This approach has three major components:
        a simplified 2010 Census and more timely data based on
              eliminating the long form through implementation of the
              American Community Survey (ACS);
        a single, continuously updated address universe and
              associated geographical products for use in all decennial and
              demographic programs; and
        a well-tested and planned 2010 Census design produced
              through systematic development prior to mid-decade operational
              testing.
      The American Community Survey is a revolutionary, structural
    initiative of the statistical system that will provide community
    profiles similar to those from the decennial census on a far more
    current basis. For geographic areas with populations greater than
    65,000, these profiles will be produced every year. For smaller areas,
    the ACS will accumulate or average data over several years to obtain
    annual estimates similar in quality and reliability to those currently
    available only once each decade. Thus, every jurisdiction ultimately
    will have annual information that illuminates change over time. (The
    official counts of the population will continue to come from the
    decennial census and the intercensal estimates program.) Because the
    American Community Survey will provide essentially the same information
    as the current decennial census long form, the Census Bureau plans to
    eliminate the long form in the 2010 Census, thereby focusing that effort
    on counting the population using only the short form. In 2002, Phase II
    of developing the ACS occurs, in which data from the 1999-2001 ACS will
    be compared with Census 2000 results.
      Under the aegis of the congressionally-mandated Interagency Council on
    Statistical Policy (ICSP), the principal statistical agencies continue
    to extend their collaborative endeavors to improve the overall
    performance and efficiency of the Federal statistical system. For
    example, the ICSP is supporting FedStats (www.fedstats.gov), the ``one-
    stop shopping'' Internet site for Federal statistics that permits easy
    access via an initial point of entry to the wide array of statistical
    information available to the public from more than 100 Federal agencies.
    In 2000, FedStats nearly doubled (from 40 to 77) the number of agencies
    whose data series are indexed there. In 2001, the FedStats team updated
    its home page based on recommendations from a usability work group, and
    enhanced its MapStats section to provide an interactive map-based
    application to access a variety of data at the State, county,
    congressional district, and Federal judicial district levels.
      The statistical system is also working effectively to enhance the
    quality of data the agencies produce. For example, statistical agencies
    have developed proposed data sharing legislation that would permit
    limited sharing of confidential data among selected agencies solely for
    statistical purposes. Enactment of this legislation, and of a companion
    Treasury Department proposal that would make complementary changes to
    provisions set forth in the ``Statistical Use'' section of the Internal
    Revenue Code, will create a framework for statistical agencies to
    compare and improve the quality of their data.
      Despite these accomplishments, rapid changes in our economy and
    society, and funding levels that challenge statistical agencies to keep
    pace with them, can threaten the relevance, accuracy, and timeliness of
    our Nation's key statistics. Any growing inability of our statistical
    system to mirror accurately our economy and society, including the
    unprecedented growth of electronic commerce, could undermine core
    government activities, such as the accurate allocation of scarce Federal
    funds. Fortunately, the most serious shortcomings of our statistical
    infrastructure would be substantially mitigated by five programs
    supported in the Administration's budget as well as a legislative
    initiative. In particular, these actions would:
        develop an integrated statistical base for analysis of the
              effects of E-business across our Nation's products and
              industries, including changes in the structure of investment,
              pricing, and distribution

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              practices (Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of the
              Census);
        support the tabulation, analysis, and dissemination of
              Census 2000 data in order to reap the benefits of Census 2000
              investments (Bureau of the Census);
        support early planning for the 2010 Census predicated on a
              fundamental reengineering of the census process (Bureau of the
              Census);
        continue implementation of the American Community Survey
              program to produce far more timely data for States and local
              areas that will be used for various purposes, including the
              distribution of nearly $200 billion in Federal funds annually
              (Bureau of the Census);
        improve coverage of the construction and service sectors in
              the Producer Price Index (which may also produce
              methodological techniques that further improve the Consumer
              Price Index) and enhance coverage of the service sector in BLS
              productivity estimates (Bureau of Labor Statistics); and
        provide new statutory authority for the limited sharing of
              data among designated Federal agencies solely for statistical
              purposes. The proposed changes would permit these statistical
              agencies to manage information in many important respects as
              if they were part of a single agency, thereby increasing the
              accuracy of statistical estimates and the efficiency of
              Federal data collection.
      Taken together, statistics produced by the Federal Government on
    demographic, economic, and social conditions and trends are essential to
    inform decisions that are made by virtually every organization and
    household in our Nation. The U.S. Federal statistical system comprises
    some 70 agencies that collect, analyze, and disseminate information for
    use by governments, businesses, researchers, and the public.
    Approximately one third of the funding for the statistical system
    provides resources for ten agencies that have statistical activities as
    their principal mission. (Please see Table 11-1.) The remaining funding
    is spread among some sixty agencies that carry out statistical
    activities in conjunction with other missions such as providing services
    or enforcing regulations. The following highlights elaborate on the
    Administration's proposals to strengthen the programs of the principal
    Federal statistical agencies.

     HIGHLIGHTS OF 2002 PROGRAM PROPOSALS FOR PRINCIPAL STATISTICAL AGENCIES

      Bureau of Economic Analysis: Funding is requested to address critical
    gaps in coverage and the growing measurement error in Gross Domestic
    Product (GDP) and the national income accounts. BEA will develop new
    data sources and methods to improve measurement of the services
    industry, including telecommunications and other E-business related
    services; savings, investment and household wealth; international trade
    and finance; and derivative instruments, and will incorporate this
    information into the economic accounts. BEA will work with other
    statistical agencies to: (1) ensure that E-business, including related
    investment, is captured in estimates of GDP and other economic accounts
    data, and (2) develop estimates of the impact of E-business across
    products and industries, including investment, prices, and distribution.
    In addition, BEA will upgrade its computer and data handling
    capabilities to protect and disseminate its data and meet the demands of
    these improved measures of economic performance. Without such
    improvements, timely release of the GDP and related measures would be
    put at risk.
      Bureau of Justice Statistics: Funding is requested to: (1) design and
    field a statistical series on the nature and consequences of routine
    traffic stops based on administrative data from law enforcement agencies
    and supplemental data from the National Crime Victimization Survey
    (NCVS) to learn about the public's experience relating to traffic stops;
    (2) implement a voluntary reporting system of deaths of persons while in
    law enforcement custody as required by the Deaths in Custody Act of 2000
    that will include reports, submitted quarterly by States, on the death
    of any person who is in the process of arrest, is en route to be
    incarcerated, or is incarcerated at a municipal or county jail, State
    prison, or other local or State correctional facility; (3) initiate the
    conversion of the NCVS interviewing and data collection activities from
    primarily a paper and pencil operation to a fully computerized system;
    (4) develop a methodology and initiate preliminary testing of potential
    questions to be used to enhance the NCVS to measure victimization of the
    disabled population in the United States as required by the Crime
    Victims with Disabilities Awareness Act; and (5) continue the Cybercrime
    Statistical Program, initiated in 2001, designed to measure changes in
    the incidence, magnitude, and consequences of electronic crime.
      Bureau of Labor Statistics: Funding is requested to: (1) begin a new
    effort to fundamentally change the way the Consumer Price Index is
    revised and updated by instituting a process for continuous improvement
    in place of the periodic major revisions that were undertaken about
    every ten years; (2) enhance BLS' data security program and start
    replacing much of its decade-old local area network (LAN) infrastructure
    with a more current and capable LAN system through a central Department
    of Labor appropriation; (3) proceed with development of a new survey to
    measure how Americans spend their time in order to improve assessments
    of national well-being, and produce diary estimates of time spent in
    market work to evaluate existing estimates of work hours; (4) continue
    work to extend Producer Price Index coverage for the first time to the
    construction sector of the U.S. economy and to enhance service sector
    coverage; (5) proceed with development of new industry labor and
    multifactor productivity series for the service-producing sector; and
    (6) continue

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    to improve the statistical quality of local area unemployment
    statistics.
      Bureau of the Census: Funding is requested for Census 2000, Census
    2010 Planning, and for the Census Bureau's economic and demographic
    programs. For Census 2000, funding is requested to: (1) continue to
    disseminate data products; (2) manage remaining activities to complete
    Census 2000; (3) ensure that the contracts for data capture are closed
    out efficiently; (4) respond to concerns from local and tribal
    governments about the accuracy of the census counts via the Count
    Question Resolution program; (5) compare data from the American
    Community Survey (ACS) with Census 2000 results; and (6) continue
    evaluating census operations. For the 2010 Census, funding is requested
    to provide for adequate testing and simplified data collection by: (1)
    establishing an early design and testing infrastructure to allow
    complete testing of all major elements of the 2010 Census design; (2)
    developing the Long Form Transitional Database to enable reengineering
    of the 2010 Census through use of the ACS to collect long form data; and
    (3) replacing the MAF/TIGER system with one that uses Global Positioning
    System technology and satellite mapping imagery to update and improve
    the Census 2000 address information. For Census Bureau economic and
    demographic programs, funding is requested to: (1) maintain the program
    to measure E-business; (2) redesign samples for household surveys based
    on Census 2000 data; and (3) begin implementation of the 2002 Economic
    Censuses and Census of Governments.
      Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Funding is requested to: (1)
    implement the Safety Data Action Plan, a series of projects to improve
    the quality, comparability, and timeliness of transportation safety data
    and to better understand accident causation; (2) improve the collection
    and analysis of aviation data, particularly data related to flight delay
    and airline competition; (3) continue developing the Intermodal
    Transportation Data Base, a web-based portal that provides one-stop
    shopping for transportation data; (4) expand the National Transportation
    Library, which provides access to the Nation's transportation research
    and planning literature via the Internet; (5) collect data on travel
    behavior, freight movement, customer satisfaction, and motor carrier
    operations; (6) strengthen transportation data analysis and study
    emerging trends; (7) improve statistical tools for geo-spatial data
    analyses and promote their use in transportation applications; (8)
    ensure the reliability of DOT's GPRA performance measurement data and
    develop measures for DOT's new strategic goals; and (9) publish the
    monthly Transportation Indicators report, the congressionally-mandated
    Transportation Statistics Annual Report, and its companion, the National
    Transportation Statistics report.
      Economic Research Service: Funding is requested to: (1) provide
    economic analysis and expert witness litigation support related to the
    Pigford Consent Decree which resulted from a class action lawsuit that
    alleged racial discrimination in the administration of USDA farm loan
    and benefit programs, and (2) publish information on retail purchases of
    representative meat products required by the Mandatory Price Reporting
    Act of 1999.
      Energy Information Administration: Funding is requested to continue:
    (1) overhauling the natural gas and electricity surveys and data systems
    to accommodate the changes in these industries brought on by
    deregulation and restructuring; (2) updating EIA's 20-year-old energy
    consumption surveys; (3) improving the data quality and accuracy in
    crude oil, diesel, gasoline, and natural gas production surveys; (4)
    modifying surveys to reflect changes under Tier II of the Clean Air Act
    Amendments, and (5) integrating information processing infrastructure
    upgrades to enhance energy data collection, analyses, and dissemination,
    and meet Government Paperwork Elimination Act requirements.
      National Agricultural Statistics Service: Funding is requested to: (1)
    finalize preparations for data collection and processing for the 2002
    Census of Agriculture that include printing over three million
    questionnaires and other materials; developing final procedures for
    mailout and processing; designing and testing computer systems;
    developing State and national management and tabulation plans; preparing
    for the census in Puerto Rico and insular areas; training; and
    developing dissemination mechanisms for both electronic and printed
    media; and (2) establish a computer security architecture to increase
    protection of market-sensitive and confidential data from cybersecurity
    threats.
      National Center for Education Statistics: Funding is requested to
    administer State-level reading and mathematics assessments for the
    National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) annually in grades 4
    and 8, as well as to continue the current NAEP assessment program.
    Funding is also requested to continue support for: (1) an institutional
    census survey program that provides information on elementary,
    secondary, and postsecondary education and on libraries; (2) a special
    cross-sectional surveys program that collects and reports data on a wide
    variety of topics, including schools and school staff, adult literacy,
    postsecondary faculty, and postsecondary student aid; (3) a longitudinal
    surveys program that includes the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies'
    Birth and Kindergarten cohorts, the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002
    which will follow a nationally representative sample of high school
    students, and two postsecondary surveys, the Beginning Postsecondary
    Longitudinal Survey and the Baccalaureate and Beyond; (4) an
    international studies program that includes a variety of projects, such
    as the Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat (TIMSS-
    R); (5) a statistical standards and reporting program designed to
    enhance the quality and usefulness of NCES data; and (6) training,
    technical assistance, and dissemination projects.
      National Center for Health Statistics: Funding is requested to: (1)
    continue to stabilize and rebuild core data systems as part of an
    ongoing effort to maintain existing data systems while retooling to meet
    new data

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    needs and more fully utilize new technology and methods; (2) support
    updating the design of household survey samples based on Census 2000
    data; and (3) provide information critical to monitoring the dynamics of
    health and health care, and provide the underpinnings for biomedical
    research, health policy, and public health practice through support of
    the National Health Interview Survey, the National Health and Nutrition
    Examination Survey, the National Vital Statistics System, and the
    National Health Care Survey.

                       Table 11-1.  2000-2002 BUDGET AUTHORITY FOR PRINCIPAL STATISTICAL AGENCIES
                                                (In millions of dollars)
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                     2000        2001        2002
                                                                                    actual     estimate    estimate
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Bureau of Economic Analysis.................................................        43.8        48.1        56.6
    Bureau of Justice Statistics................................................        25.5        29.0        30.5
    Bureau of Labor Statistics..................................................       413.2  \1\, \2\ 4   \3\ 468.3
                                                                                                    50.9

    Bureau of the Census........................................................     4,749.7  \2\, \4\ 4       543.4
                                                                                                    29.2
       Periodic Censuses and Programs...........................................     4,609.3   \4\ 272.3       374.8
       Salaries and Expenses....................................................       140.0       156.8       168.6

    Bureau of Transportation Statistics.........................................        31.0        31.0        43.8
    Economic Research Service...................................................        64.1        65.9        67.0
    Energy Information Administration...........................................        72.4        75.5        75.5
    National Agricultural Statistics Service \5\................................        99.4       100.6       113.8

    National Center for Education Statistics....................................       108.0       120.0       193.1
      Statistics................................................................        68.0        80.0        84.0
      Assessment................................................................        36.0        36.0       105.0
       National Assessment Governing Board......................................         4.0         4.0         4.1

    National Center for Health Statistics.......................................       111.8       122.4       127.0
      PHS Evaluation Funds......................................................        71.7        71.7       127.0
      Budget Authority..........................................................        40.1        50.7         0.0
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Includes a transfer of $20.7 million from elsewhere in the Department of Labor to centralize the preparation
      of labor market information.

    \2\ Includes rescission (P.L. 106-554)

    \3\ Total reflects a financing charge that reduces the 2002 total by $7.5 million.

    \4\ Does not include $260 million in carry-over funding made available to the Census Bureau in 2001 from funds
      appropriated for the Decennial Census in 2000, resulting in a 2001 program level of $689.2 million.

    \5\ Includes funds for the periodic Census of Agriculture and Special Studies of $16.5, $15.0, and $25.0
      (million) in 2000, 2001, and 2002, respectively.