Corrections

If something on HowIsTheUSDoing is wrong, we fix it and say so here.

We put numbers from many agencies side by side, which means converting units, lining up dates and adding up pieces. We check these steps, but with this many sources we will sometimes get one wrong, so reports from readers matter.

How to report a problem

Use the contact page. Tell us which chart or number, the date range, and what looks wrong. A link to the chart helps: use “Copy link to this chart” under the chart.

What we do

1. We check the number against the source agency’s own publication.
2. If we made a mistake (a wrong figure, label, unit, date or calculation), we fix it, rebuild the site, and add a line to the log below with the date and what changed.
3. If we disagree, or the difference comes from the source, we reply and explain.

What is not a correction

Agencies revise past numbers from time to time, and new releases extend the data. When a number changes because its source changed it, the site simply shows the newer figure. We do not list those here.

Corrections log

• October 9, 2026: Traffic deaths in crashes with a drinking driver showed 0 for 2021. NHTSA stopped recording that field in its crash files after 2020, so the line now ends in 2020, and its description no longer calls it a count of drivers with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 or higher: it is the number of deaths in crashes that the files record as involving a drinking driver, which is lower than NHTSA's published estimate of deaths in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes. North Dakota now has its 2022 FBI crime rates: the FBI's file labels North Dakota's 2022 row with North Carolina's abbreviation, so North Dakota was missing that year (North Carolina's figures shown on the site were correct). County figures from the American Community Survey are now labeled as five-year averages, which is what they are; the national and state figures are one-year estimates.
• October 9, 2026: Part-finished years and empty charts. Federal disaster aid and flood insurance (claims and payments) were drawn through 2026, which was only nine months old, so the last point looked like a collapse; they now end with the last complete year (2025). Fifteen numbers that were all zeros, or a flat line of two or three points, were removed because they showed zero where the truth was "too small to show" (several small crime categories reported as rates, drought deaths, two CDC series for Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander people, and some county overdose counts). Excess deaths are no longer stacked by state, because CDC estimates each state on its own and shows zero when deaths were at or below what was expected, so the states do not add up to the nation. Dollar amounts in chart tooltips now include their unit ("$90 million" instead of "$0.09"), and yearly and quarterly numbers are labeled with the year or quarter ("2024", "Q2 2026") instead of a month.
• October 9, 2026: Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis numbers are now read from those agencies' published data files instead of their data interfaces (APIs). Every series was compared with the numbers already on the site and matched, with these exceptions. Where the old interface reported "not available" as $0, the zero is gone: personal income for Alaska and Hawaii before statehood (1929 to 1949), the GDP and income of some county areas before they existed (for example several Alaska census areas), and the poverty and income of Kalawao County, Hawaii in 2001 and 2002. Two counties' 1989 child poverty rates (Owsley County, Kentucky and Ziebach County, South Dakota) showed 99.9%; the Census file itself gives figures above 100% for them, so they are left out. The homeownership rate for 1993 now uses the Census Bureau's revised figures (for example 63.7% for the first quarter instead of 64.2%). Several series now start earlier because the files go back further: vacancy rates (1956), homeownership (1964), construction spending (1993) and the trade balance (1992).
• October 8, 2026: Company quarterly revenue and net income: some fourth quarters mixed a later restated full year with the original quarters (for example AT&T's fourth quarter of 2020 showed $17.0 billion instead of the $45.7 billion it reported, and Fubo showed negative revenue). Every quarter now uses the figure as the company first reported it. Paramount's first two quarters of 2025 showed $0 and now show the reported figures. The T-Mobile, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fubo lines now start when the current company began filing (earlier figures under the same SEC registration belonged to MetroPCS, Discovery alone and a predecessor shell company). Amazon's fourth quarters of 2011 and 2012 were swapped in its own filing data and are now correct. Two years whose quarters do not add up to any full-year figure the company reported (Verizon's 2010 net income and Alphabet's 2012 revenue) are left out.
• October 8, 2026: For New York, CDC drug overdose deaths and weekly deaths left out New York City (CDC reports the city separately), so they were about 40% too low. New York now includes the city. CDC's monthly births for New York also leave out the city and the city has no separate figure, so New York is no longer shown for monthly births.
• October 8, 2026: "Federal Spending" and "Federal Revenue (last 12 months)" were showing single months (about $527 billion of spending in August 2026) instead of the 12-month totals (about $7.2 trillion). The 12-month totals are restored. The single-month figures are still on the site as "Federal Spending (monthly)" and "Federal Revenue (monthly)".
• October 8, 2026: County GDP, real GDP and personal income were shown 1,000 times too large (for example, Bergen County, NJ personal income read as about $104 trillion instead of $104 billion). Fixed. State and national figures were not affected.
• October 8, 2026: "Labor Productivity, Change from a Year Earlier" and "Unit Labor Costs, Change from a Year Earlier" were showing BLS's quarter-to-quarter change at an annual rate. They now show the change from the same quarter a year earlier, as labeled.