FAQ

What is USAFacts?

Will USAFacts always be free? Are there plans for a paid premium version?

How is USAFacts funded?

Who is Steve Ballmer and why is he doing this?

Steve Ballmer is the current chairman of the LA Clippers basketball team and the former CEO of Microsoft. The Ballmer Group was founded to make strategic investments in nonprofits to improve the economic mobility for families facing intergenerational poverty. To aid those efforts, Steve wanted to understand what governments spend on programs to help the American people and the outcomes of those programs. However, unlike businesses, US governments are not mandated to compile reports on their expenditures. Steve hired data analysts to collect the numbers over months, resulting in the Government 10-K. USAFacts grew out of an understanding that Americans need access to government data to understand the state of the nation.

USAFacts does not make grants and doesn’t advocate for any views of Steve or Connie Ballmer except for one: that facts matter and public data should be widely available and understandable.

Can I use your data? Do I need to credit USAFacts?

Can I upload my own datasets to the USAFacts website?

Why do you only use government data?

How often is your data updated?

Why is some of your data old?

How do you address reliability and quality issues within government data? How do readers know it’s nonpartisan?

Do you provide government data for other countries?

Why do your financial figures sometimes differ from other government sources?

Do you adjust for inflation?

When is the API going to be available?