About HowIsTheUSDoing

HowIsTheUSDoing puts official U.S. government numbers on prices, jobs, the economy, government finances, banking, crime and the border in one place, so anyone can put them side by side and look at them over any stretch of time.

Independent and nonpartisan

No party, candidate, agency, company or advertiser is behind this site or pays for it. It shows numbers, and does not tell you what they mean or who is responsible for them. Presidential terms are shaded on the charts only so you can find dates (red for Republican presidents, blue for Democratic ones). The shading is a reference, and says nothing about credit or blame.

Where the numbers come from

Every number comes from a U.S. government source: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Energy Information Administration, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the FBI, Customs and Border Protection, the FDIC and the Federal Register. These are read straight from each agency's own published files or data services. The Sources & terms page lists each source, how it asks to be credited, a link to its terms, and a dated copy of those terms that we keep.

How current is it?

The top of every page says when the newest data point is dated and when the site was last updated. The numbers reach us on each source's own schedule: some are published daily, some weekly, most monthly, a few quarterly or yearly. A number that looks old is usually one that its source has not published again yet. Latest data point: 2026-10-05. Site updated: 2026-10-06.

What we do to the numbers

Most figures are shown exactly as published. We never estimate, smooth or fill in a missing value: a gap in the source is a gap on the chart. The few things we compute are:

• The one-scale chart. Each number is divided by its own value on the start date and multiplied by 100, so different kinds of numbers can share a chart. Above 100 means higher than at the start.
• Inflation adjustment (optional switch). Dollar amounts are scaled by the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers, U.S. city average (BLS), to the latest month.
• Do they move together? The match score is a standard correlation between monthly averages of two numbers, once for the levels and once for year-over-year changes. It describes what happened and does not show that one thing caused another.
• Yearly crime rates. Each year is the sum of that year's monthly rates reported to the FBI, because the monthly figures for 2017 to 2020 are distorted by agencies that report once a year.
• Misery index. The unemployment rate plus the 12-month inflation rate.
• Last-12-month totals for federal revenue, spending and the deficit, and for executive orders signed.

What the numbers do not say

• Crime figures are what police agencies reported to the FBI. Not every agency reports every year, and the FBI's switch to a new reporting system in 2021 lowered participation that year.
• Border encounters count each time someone was stopped, caught or turned away. They are not a count of everyone who crossed, and the same person can be counted more than once. People entering legally are counted separately, under travelers.
• Seizures, assaults and use-of-force numbers reflect what was found or reported, and move with enforcement activity as well as with what is happening.
• Sources revise past figures from time to time, so a number you saw earlier may change.

No ads, and very little tracking

There are no ads. See the privacy page for exactly what is and is not collected.

Found a mistake?

Please tell us. See how corrections work or get in touch.

Citing this site

If you quote a chart, please also credit the source agency named under it. A suggested form: “HowIsTheUSDoing (https://howistheusdoing.pages.dev), using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed 2026-10-06.” Replace the agency with the one named for your numbers.