The Federal Prison Population Buildup: Overview, Policy Changes, Issues, and Options

"Since the early 1980s, there has been a historically unprecedented increase in the federal prison
population. Some of the growth is attributable to changes in federal criminal justice policy during
the previous three decades. An issue before Congress is whether policymakers consider the rate of
growth in the federal prison population sustainable, and if not, what changes could be made to
federal criminal justice policy to reduce the prison population while maintaining public safety..."
Federal Prison Population Buildup

GlobalHealth

"The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) is the lead HHS office in global health and international matters. OGA provides advice and direction to the HHS leadership regarding international health, family, and social affairs, including health diplomacy in support of U.S. foreign policy..."
GlobalHealth.gov

Federal Programs Available to Unemployed Workers

"Four groups of federal programs target unemployed workers: unemployment insurance, health
care assistance, job search assistance, and training. This report presents information on federal
programs targeted to unemployed workers specifically, but does not attempt to discuss meanstested
programs (such as Medicaid or SSI) that are available regardless of employment status..."
Federal Programs Available to Unemployed Workers

The Structure and Practices of the Debt Buying Industry

"The FTC initiated this debt buyer study in late 2009 for two main purposes. First, the FTC sought to
obtain a better understanding of the debt buying market and the process of buying and selling debt. Second, the Commission wanted to explore the nature and extent of the relationship, if any, between the practice of debt buying and the types of information problems that the FTC has found can occur when debt collectors seek to recover and verify debts..."
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2013/01/debtbuyingreport.pdf
Structure and Practice of the Debt Buying Industry

America's Chidren and the Environment, 3rd ed.

"America’s Children and the Environment is an EPA report that presents key information on environmental stressors that can affect children’s health. In January 2013, EPA released an updated third edition of this report (ACE3) that shows the status and trends of:

• Environments and Contaminants (contaminants in air, water, food, and soil and other environmental conditions),
• Biomonitoring (chemicals measured in the bodies of mothers and children), and
• Health (childhood diseases and health outcomes)..."
• Read the full report

America's Children and the Environment, 3rd ed.

American Factfinder (update)

Explore  2 new features of the Census Bureau's American Factfinder database: Community  Facts and Guided Search.
New Ways to Find Facts

African American History Month: February 2013

Find selected statistics on the African American community from the U.S. Census Bureau.
African American History Month: February 2013

Educational Attainment in the United States:2012

Find the latest statistics on the highest level of education that an individual has completed. Data is available for all races, Asians, Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and both sexes.
Educational Attainment in the United States: 2012

State of the Climate National Overview Annual 2012

Find national temperature and precipitation data for 2012.
State of the Climate, National Overview Annual 2012

The Protection of Classified Information: The Legal Framework

"This report provides an overview of the relationship between executive and legislative authority
over national security information, and summarizes the current laws that form the legal framework protecting classified information, including current executive orders and some agency regulations pertaining to the handling of unauthorized disclosures of classified information by government officers and employees. The report also summarizes criminal laws that pertain specifically to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, as well as civil and administrative penalties..."
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RS21900.pdf

Physician Practices: Background, Organization, and Market Consolidation

"A growing number of U.S. physicians are combining their practices; affiliating with hospitals, insurance companies, and specialty management firms; or going to work directly for such organizations. The moves are part of a broader trend toward consolidation in health care, with the overall number of mergers and acquisitions in the sector at the highest level in a decade...


This report provides background on factors contributing to changes in physician practice organization,
including physician supply, sources of revenue, operating costs, and government incentives. It also examines the different types of integration, the legal intricacies of affiliation, and the possible implications for consumer and federal policy..."

https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42880.pdf

Antibiotic Resistance Questions & Answers

Find recent information on the correct usage of antibiotics from the  U.S. Centers for Disease prevention and Control.
Antibiotic Resistance: Questions and Answers

C rime in the U.S.2012 (January. - June 2012)

"Preliminary figures indicate that, as a whole, law enforcement agencies throughout the nation reported an increase of 1.9 percent in the number of violent crimes brought to their attention for the first 6 months of 2012 when compared with figures reported for the same time in 2011. The violent crime category includes murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The number of property crimes in the United States from January to June of 2012 increased 1.5 percent when compared with data from the same time period in 2011..."
Crime in the U.S. 2012 (Jan. - June 2012)

Foreign Holdings of U.S. Debt

"This report presents current data on estimated ownership of U.S. Treasury securities and major holders of federal debt by country. Federal debt represents the accumulated balance of borrowing by the federal government. To finance federal borrowing, U.S. Treasury securities are sold to investors. Treasury securities may be purchased directly from the Treasury or on the secondary market by individual private investors, financial institutions in the United States or overseas, and foreign, state, or local governments..."
Foreign Holdings of U.S. Debt

Bee Health: The Role of Pesticides

"Bees, both commercially managed honey bees and wild bees, play an important role in global food production. In the United States, the value of honey bees only as commercial pollinators in U.S. food production is estimated at about $15 billion to $20 billion annually. The estimated value of other types of insect pollinators, including wild bees, to U.S. food production is not available. Given their importance to food production, many have expressed concern about whether a “pollinator crisis” has been occurring in recent decades..."
Bee Health: the Role of Pesticides

Private-Sector Mandates in Federal Legislation

"Federal laws and regulations sometimes require nonfederal entities to expend their resources to carry out
national policies. The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA), enacted as Public Law 104-4, defines many of those requirements as federal mandates. The law aims to ensure that Members of Congress receive information about the potential effects of mandates as they consider proposed legislation and that federal agencies take information about mandates into account as they weigh proposed regulations. To that end, UMRA requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), at certain points in the legislative process, to assess the cost of mandates that would apply to state, local, and tribal governments or to the private sector; it also requires most federal agencies to estimate those costs and other effects in the course of promulgating regulations to implement such mandates..."
Private Sector Mandates in Federal Legislation

Prisoners in 2011

Find the latest figures on the prison population in the United States (2000-2011)
Prisoners in 2011

Presidential Speech Archive

Find a archive of presidential speeches from President George Washington to President Barack Obama (via the Miller Center at the University of Virginia)
Presidential Speech Archive

President Barack Obama Second Inauguration

 President Barack Obama's  Second Inauguration  with video and text of the address
The 57th Presidential Inauguration

Now it the Time to Do Something about Gun Violence

Find the full text of President Obama's plan to reduce gun violence
Now is the Time: President's Plan to Combat Gun Violence

Free Credit Reports

 "The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months..."
Free Credit Report

United States Cancer Statistics:1999-2009

"This Web-based report includes the official federal statistics on cancer incidence from registries that have high-quality data and cancer mortality statistics for each year and 2005–2009 combined."
United States Cancer Statistics: 1999-2009

Social Security: The Government Pension Offset (GPO)

"Social Security spousal benefits were established in the 1930s to help support wives who are financially dependent on their husbands. It has since become more common for both spouses in a couple to work, with the result that, in more cases, both members of a couple are entitled to Social Security or other government pensions based on their own work records. Social Security generally does not provide both a full retired-worker and a full spousal benefit to the same individual..."
Social Security: the Government Pension Offset (GPO)

Permanent Legal Immigration to the United States: Policy Overview

"The pool of people who are eligible to immigrate to the United States as legal permanent residents (LPRs) each year typically exceeds the worldwide level set by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). In an effort to process the demand for LPR visas fairly and in the national interest, LPR admissions are subject to a complex set of numerical limits and preference categories that give priority for admission on the basis of family relationships, needed skills, and geographic diversity. The INA further specifies that each year, countries are held to a numerical limit of 7% of the worldwide level of U.S. immigrant admissions, known as per-country limits or country caps..."
Permanent Legal Immigration to the United States: Policy Overview

U.S. Periods of War and Dates of Current Conflicts

"Many wars or conflicts in U.S. history have federally designated “periods of war,” dates marking their beginning and ending. These dates are important for qualification for certain veterans’ pension or disability benefits. Confusion can occur because beginning and ending dates for “periods of war” in many nonofficial sources are often different from those given in treaties and other official sources of information, and armistice dates can be confused with termination dates..."
U.S. Periods of War and Dates of Current Conflicts

Social Security: The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)

"The windfall elimination provision (WEP) reduces the Social Security benefits of workers who
also have pension benefits from employment not covered by Social Security. Its purpose is to
remove an advantage or “windfall” these workers would otherwise receive as a result of the
interaction between the Social Security benefit formula and the workers’ relatively short careers
in Social Security-covered employment. Opponents contend the provision is basically imprecise
and can be unfair..."
Social Security: the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)

Options for Taxing U.S. Multinational Corporations

"In 2008, 12 percent of all federal revenues came from corporate income taxes; about half was paid by multinational corporations reporting income from foreign countries.1 How the federal government taxes U.S.
multinational corporations has consequences for the U.S. economy overall as well as for the federal budget..."
Options for Taxing U.S. Multinational Corporations

National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding

"...This National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding (Strategy) aims to strike the proper balance between sharing information with those who need it to keep our country safe and safeguarding it from those who would do us harm. While these two priorities—sharing and safeguarding—are often seen as mutually exclusive, in reality they are mutually reinforcing. This Strategy, therefore, emphasizes how strengthening the protection of classified and sensitive information can help to build confidence and trust so that such information can be shared with authorized users..."
National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding

Projections of Education Statistics to 2021

"This edition of Projections of Education Statistics provides projections for key education statistics, including enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures in elementary and secondary public and private schools, as well as enrollment and degrees conferred at postsecondary degree-granting institutions. Included are national data on enrollment and graduates for the past 15 years and projections to the year 2021... "
Projection of Education Statistics to 2021

Consumer.gov

Find consumer information at a new one-stop center which combines services from a number of federal agencies.

Consumer.gov

Women’s earnings by occupation, 2011

"In 2011, women working full time in management, business, and financial operations jobs had the highest median weekly earnings of any major occupational category ($977). Within this occupation group, women who were chief executives and computer and information systems managers had median weekly earnings of $1,464 and $1,543, respectively..."
Women's Earnings by Occuation, 2011

The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases

"Total federal debt can increase in two ways. First, debt increases when the government sells debt to the public to finance budget deficits and acquire the financial resources needed to meet its obligations. This increases debt held by the public. Second, debt increases when the federal
government issues debt to certain government accounts, such as the Social Security, Medicare,
and Transportation trust funds, in exchange for their reported surpluses. This increases debt held
by government accounts. The sum of debt held by the public and debt held by government accounts is the total federal debt. Surpluses reduce debt held by the public, while deficits raise it..."
The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases

American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012

Find the full text of the recently law that avoids the fiscal cliff - H.R.8 - American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012

2012 Population and Housing Estimates

Find the latest population and housing estimates for the United States, Puerto Rico, regions and states. 
2012 (July 1) Population and Housing Estimates