In order to make data regarding economic and community development accessible, StatsAmerica was created through the Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) with support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The data and tools used focus "on innovation capacity, resilience, equity, and distress." From unemployment data to personal income data, StatsAmerica offers easy to access information for anyone interested.
What is StatsAmerica?
The goal of the StatsAmerica site is "to provide easy-to-use, actionable data for economic and community developers to use in site RFIs, grant requests, developing metrics, strategic plans, and so much more." It's a pool of data for various reasons and needs.
As mentioned earlier, StatsAmerica is a service of IBRC. The IBRC has been a research and service center within Indiana University since 1925. The Center works to "monitor, research, and report" on socioeconomic trends both in Indiana and nationwide. Partners and data providers of StatsAmerica include:
- Bureau of Economic Analysis
- Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Census Bureau
- Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
- Department of Housing & Urban Development
- Economic Development Administration, Department of Commerce
- International Trade Administration
among many other research organizations and academic institutions.
StatsAmerica Tools
StatsAmerica has a large variety of tools available. Read about some of those tools below.
Innovation Intelligence explores regional characteristics related to innovation and entrepreneurship. It measures Human Capital & Knowledge Creation, Business Dynamics, Business Profile, Employment & Productivity, and Economic Well-Being.
Profiles
StatsAmerica also offers a variety of profile views that can be compared to a variety of other locations. There's Anywhere USA, County, State, and Town profiles available.
The Big Radius Tool provides "gross numbers for a mileage-based radius," which begins at 25 miles and up to 500 miles. Individuals can find population, growth rates, labor forces and popular industry sectors.
The Distress tool is used to determine unemployment rates by county to aid "with application and selection of federal grants."
This tool allows users to select multiple counties to create a region and view its demographics, commuting patterns, and industries.
Other tools that StatsAmerica offers include APRED, City-to-County Finder, CEDS Resources, and USA Opportunity Zones.
The Download Center includes s selective set of downloads in .csv format on the topics of Population, Employement and Income, StatsAmerican Tools, and Research Data sets.
User Guides & Webinars
StatsAmerica offers user guides with tips to help "complete projects, research initiative proposal, or reports." They include:
- How can University Centers use StatsAmerica?
- Guide that offers information on how to use StatsAmerica in a University setting.
- Investment Strategies with StatsAmerica
- Guide that can be used to help answer community investment questions.
- How can regional decisionmakers use Statsamerica?
- Guide built to help economic development practitioners find the data they need.
StatsAmerica has various webinars with an in-depth view of the tools the site has to offer. They highlight the Measuring Distress tool, how to make regional comparisons, and much more!
OSU Resources
To learn more about the Economic Development Administration, the department supporting StatsAmerica, OSU has an collection of resources available to patrons. They include:
Other Resources
This mapping project is shared through StatsAmerica, and it is used to make investments, create new companies, and reinvent economic strategies.
StatsAmerica has a resource hub with data and tools to better understand anything related to COVID.
StatsAmerica shares the CBB, which is a set of services that "provide selected demographic and economic data from the Census."
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