USAFacts
Non-partisan government data platform founded by Steve Ballmer — spending, demographics, outcomes, and trends from 100+ government databases.
What should journalists know about USAFacts?
USAFacts takes data from 100+ government databases and makes it understandable. Founded in 2017 by Steve Ballmer (former Microsoft CEO, current LA Clippers owner), it is structured as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a simple premise: government data exists but is scattered across agencies in incompatible formats, so most people never see it. USAFacts normalizes and visualizes that data. In 2025, USAFacts earned the highest reliability rating and lowest bias score on the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart. The 'Just the Facts with Steve Ballmer' video series reached over 65 million viewers before the 2024 election. For journalists, the platform is most useful as a starting point for contextualization — you need a quick chart showing federal spending trends, immigration numbers, or education outcomes, and USAFacts has it pre-built with source citations. The data comes from official government sources (BLS, Census, Treasury, OMB, CDC, etc.), and every number links back to its source. What USAFacts does not do is provide raw data access. It is a presentation and contextualization layer, not a data warehouse. You cannot download bulk datasets or run custom queries the way you can on Data.gov or USASpending.gov. For reporting that needs raw data, go to the source agencies. For reporting that needs context, trends, and visualization, USAFacts is fast and reliable. The Ballmer funding means the organization is well-capitalized relative to other civic data nonprofits — it hired a new CTO in 2025 and continues to expand.
Quick access to contextualized government statistics with source citations. Visualizing trends in federal and state spending, demographics, health, education, and environment. Fact-checking claims about government performance using official data. Producing charts and data visualizations for news stories. Understanding the federal budget in plain English. Comparing state-level outcomes across metrics.
Raw data downloads or bulk dataset access (use Data.gov, Census, BLS directly). Custom data queries or analysis (this is a presentation layer). Real-time data — USAFacts updates on government reporting schedules. Granular local-level data below the state level for most metrics. International data (use Our World in Data). Primary source data for academic research — always go to the source agencies.
Security & Privacy
Data is scrambled while being sent to their servers
Data is scrambled when stored on their servers
Where servers are located — affects which governments can request your data
Privacy policy summary
No account required to access any data or visualizations. USAFacts uses standard web analytics. The underlying data is from public government sources. No advertising. No paywall. No data brokerage. As a nonprofit, USAFacts does not monetize user data.
How to protect yourself:
No account required for any functionality — all data and visualizations are freely accessible without registration. The data is sourced from official government databases, so always follow the source link to verify currency and methodology. USAFacts is a secondary source — cite the original government agency for primary sourcing. Use USAFacts for context and trends, but go to the source agency for the definitive numbers.
No account required. No personal data collected for basic use. HTTPS throughout. No advertising or commercial tracking. Nonprofit with well-capitalized funding. The data is entirely derived from public government sources. From a privacy and security perspective, this is one of the lowest-risk tools in the directory — you are reading public data on a nonprofit website with no tracking.
Who Owns This
Pricing
Completely free. No premium tier. No paywalls.
This is an editorial assessment based on publicly available information as of 2026-04-11, using our published methodology. Independent security review is pending. Security posture can change at any time. This is not a guarantee of safety.
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