What Protects the Autonomy of the Federal Statistical Agencies? An Assessment of the Procedures in Place to Protect the Independence and Objectivity of Official U.S. Statistics

Abstract

The Abstract We assess the professional autonomy of the 13 principal U.S. federal statistical agencies. We define six components or measures of such autonomy and evaluate each of the 13 principal statistical agencies according to each measure. Our assessment yields three main findings: 1. Challenges to the objectivity, credibility, and utility of federal statistics arise largely as a consequence of insufficient autonomy. 2. There is remarkable variation in autonomy protections and a surprising lack of statutory protections for many agencies for many of the proposed measures. 3. Many existing autonomy rules and guidelines are weakened by unclear or unactionable