Due to the cyclical nature of these programs, it is important to track annual key activities that support the programs. The internal activities that are tracked are those considered to be the most important in meeting the long-term goals of the cyclical census programs.
Due to the nature of this program, it is important to track long-term quality, cost, and delivery schedule goals. The Census Bureau has embarked on a multi-year research and testing program focused on major innovations to the design of the census and oriented around major cost drivers.
Ensuring that data products are released on schedule is essential. OMB Statistical Directive Number 3 requires that the data for the principal economic indicators be released within prescribed time periods.
The American Community Survey (ACS) includes the release of detailed social, economic, and housing data. The ACS replaced the Decennial Census’ long form in 2005. People increasingly depend on the most current Census Bureau population and income data to made decision on business locations and investments in real estate. Communities rely on this data to measure the demand for housing, predict future needs, and identify trends.
This performance measure tracks BEA’s ability to reliably estimate its most important statistic, gross domestic product (GDP). This measure is a composite index of six indicators of reliability, applied using three-year rolling averages to develop a single measure of the reliability of the GDP statistics.
The Census Bureau has initiated several enterprise programs focused on establishing shared services, minimizing redundancy, lowering complexity, and identifying cost savings for data collection, processing, and dissemination.
BEA must continually update its economic accounts to keep pace with the ever-changing U.S. and global economies. The BEA Strategic Plan tracks BEA’s progress toward achieving the milestones related to improvements to BEA's accounts. This indicator tracks the bureau's progress toward achieving milestones of data and methodological improvements.
The importance of data as an ingredient for sound economic decision-making requires BEA to deliver data to decision-makers and other data users not only quickly but also reliably—that is, on schedule. Each fall, BEA publishes a schedule for the release of its economic data the following year; this measure is evaluated as the number of scheduled releases issued on time. BEA has an outstanding record of releasing its economic data on schedule.
BEA must continually develop new statistical products to keep pace with the ever-changing U.S. and global economies. The BEA Strategic Plan outlines the bureau’s plans for developing new statistical products. This indicator measures the bureau's progress toward achieving milestones of their development.