Unlike many countries, the United States has a decentralized statistics system, with no central statistical agency. Rather, there are numerous individual federal agencies that share the responsibility of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating statistics, as well as numerous state and local government agencies that provide statistics to the federal government.
A statistical agency or unit, as defined in the Federal Register June 27, 1997 (62 FR 35043–35050), is an agency or organizational unit of the Executive Branch whose activities are predominantly the collection, compilation, processing or analysis of information for statistical purposes.
The Statistical and Science Policy Branch within the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs promotes the quality, integrity, and efficiency of federal government statistical programs and evaluates the scientific and technical underpinnings of information collection requests, regulatory impact analyses, risk assessments, and health and safety guidance standards through six core activities: long-range planning, policy and standard setting, statistical program evaluation and review, interagency and international coordination, scientific review, and information quality oversight.
The Chief Statistician at the OMB oversees and coordinates U.S. federal statistical policies, standards, and programs; develops and advances long-term improvements in federal statistical activities; and represents the U.S. government in international statistical organizations, including the UN and the OECD.
