U.S. Economic Data: Local Areas

The many interfaces to data from the U.S. Census Bureau often allow the extraction of data aggregated at detailed geographic levels. Please see our U.S. Census Guide.

Social Explorer and SimplyMap provide relatively simple interfaces for accessing sub-county data.

Some of the other Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics programs also offer data aggregated to smaller geographies.

• Log Into North Carolina (LINC)
  Collection of data about North Carolina from federal and state data sources compiled by the NC Office of State Budget and Management.  A related site is the NC Census Lookup from the same agency.
  Levels: State, county, often for municipalities
• Population and Housing Unit Estimates
  From the Population Estimate Program (PEP) of the U.S. Census Bureau. Has population estimates with breakdowns for age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin.
  Levels: National, state, county, sub-county
• Regional Economic Accounts
  From the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Contains estimates of personal income and per capita personal income, Gross State Product, and state employment and income projections.
  Levels: State, county, metropolitan area
• Area Deprivation Index (ADI)
  The ADI allows for rankings of neighborhoods by socioeconomic status disadvantage.. It includes factors for the theoretical domains of income, education, employment, and housing quality. You can also get the year 2000 ADI datasets.
  Levels: Census block group
• School District Demographics System (SDDS)
  From the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the SDDS includes data derived from Census and NCES sources, updated annually.There are also experimental data developed for a limited set of school attendance areas based on boundaries provided by the School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS) pilot project.
  Levels: National, state, school district
• State of the Cities Data System
  A product from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that provides a portal for a wide range of government statistics (Census of Population and Housing, Census of Governments, County Business Patterns, FBI Crime Data) on US cities. Data available include: crime, education, ethnicity, finances, housing, population, and race among other indicators. The site includes a series of GIS layers of US urban areas.
  Levels: Cities
• Community Crime Map 
  From LexisNexis. Data at the incident level, obtained from local law enforcement jurisdictions.  Raw data used for Durham County can be downloaded from the Durham Open Data Portal if you want to analyze it using spreadsheet, statistical, or GIS software.
• Sub-National U.S. Trade
  From the Office of Trade & Economic Analysis, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. Includes international trade data.
  Levels: State, metropolitan area

The following sources have earlier data in paper format. Please ask the Economics Librarian for assistance.

• Economic Censuses
  Many of these series have data aggregated by local geographic areas such as city or county.
  • 2002, 2007, 2012 Economic Censuses Requires use of the American FactFinder interface (we recommend choosing Dataset)
  • Drill-down interface for 1992, 1997, and 2002 Economic Censuses
  • 1977-present raw data Census FTP site with datasets in ASCII fixed length, CSV, DBF, and other formats
• County and Zip Code Business Patterns
  Provides economic data by industry at the county or zip code levels of aggregation. This series includes the number of establishments, employment, first quarter payroll, and annual payroll.
  Raw data as .csv files are available from the CPB Download Page.
• County and City Databook
  Data from the 1930's to the 1970's aggregated to these levels of geography.
• Census of Governments
  These Census Bureau surveys collect financial and employment data for local governments.

• Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC)
  Reports about home mortgage loans (home mortgage disclosure act). The Census and Demographic Data page includes a link to the FFIEC Online Census Data System, which provides a quick overview of demographic/financial information.
  Levels: Metro area, county, census tract
• Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
  The Act requires many financial institutions to maintain, report, and publicly disclose information about mortgages. It is managed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council has a page of more HMDA links, and ICPSR study 24612 also has HMDA data and codebooks.
  Levels: Down to census tract

• Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Geographic Guide
  An easy-to-use matrix showing data availability by geographic coverage.
  Levels: State, metropolitan area, county
• Current Employment Statistics (CES)
  An employer survey (location represents place of work) of the BLS with detailed industry data on employment, hours, and earnings. See LAUS, below, for a corresponding household survey.
  Levels: State, metropolitan area
• Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS)
  A program of the BLS that "produces monthly and annual employment, unemployment, and labor force data ... by place of residence" (i.e., a household survey, not by place of employment). See CES, above, for a corresponding employer survey.
  Levels: Census Region, Census Division, state, metropolitan area, county, many cities
• Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program (LEHD)
  A Census Bureau program that "creates statistics on employment, earnings, and job flows at detailed levels of geography and industry and for different demographic groups. In addition, the LEHD program uses these data to create partially synthetic data on workers' residential patterns." 
• Occupational Employment Statistics
  A program of the BLS that produces employment and wage estimates annually for over 800 occupations.
  Levels: State, metropolitan area
• Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
  An employer survey of the BLS that publishes a quarterly count of employment and wages as reported by employers, available by industry.
  Levels: National, state, metropolitan area, county
• Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE)
  The SAIPE program from the Census Bureau produces annual estimates of income and poverty statistics for .
  Levels: States, counties, school district