How to Search, Compare, and Download Data on Data USA

Data USA is a free public-data platform that turns U.S. government data into more than 47,000 automated reports covering 36,534 locations, 308 industries, 648 jobs, 7,587 universities, 1,837 degrees, and 254 products. You can search for a report by keyword, open a profile page, compare two or more entities, and download the underlying data. The steps below walk through each of those tasks.

Before you start

• You do not need an account to browse reports, view aggregated data, or download data.
• The site is organized around entity types: Locations, Industries, Jobs, Universities, Degrees, and Products. Knowing which type your subject belongs to helps you pick the right report.
• Data USA states that its data comes from public U.S. Government sources, aggregated into a single platform rather than scattered across multiple sources.

Search for a report

1. Go to the Data USA homepage and find the Search Reports field.
2. Type a keyword — a place name, an industry, a job title, a university, a degree, or a product category. For example, California, Registered nurses, or Computer Science.
3. Submit the search and review the matching reports.
4. Open the report that matches your entity type. Each report is an automated profile built from the aggregated data.

If you already know the broad category, you can also start from the browse sections instead of searching:

Expected result: you land on a report page for that entity, with its aggregated statistics and a path to the raw data.

Compare reports

1. Open the report you want as your baseline.
2. Use the site's Compare reports function to add a second (or additional) entity of the same type — for example, two locations, two industries, or two universities.
3. Read the comparison side by side to see how the entities differ on the metrics shown.

Keep comparisons within the same entity type. Comparing a location against an industry mixes categories and will not give you a meaningful read. If you want to compare places, compare places; if you want to compare occupations, compare occupations.

Explore with the map

The homepage offers Explore, map, compare, and download U.S. data as a combined workflow. The map view is useful when your question is geographic — for example, seeing how a metric is distributed across states or metro areas before drilling into a specific location report. Use the map to find a place, then open its report to see the full profile.

View aggregated data and download it

1. On a report page, review the aggregated data — the summarized figures Data USA has already computed for that entity.
2. Use the Download data option to get the underlying dataset for the report.
3. If you need to reproduce or extend the analysis, download first and work from the file rather than copying numbers off the screen.

Expected result: you have a local copy of the data behind the report, which you can sort, chart, or merge with other sources.

Use popular reports as shortcuts

If you are not sure where to begin, the Recent popular reports section on the homepage lists frequently viewed entities. Current examples include:

• Locations: California, Welch WV, New York NY, Houston TX
• Industries: Oil & gas extraction, Finance & Insurance, Restaurants & Food Services, Utilities
• Jobs: Customer service representatives, Police officers, Service Occupations, Registered nurses
• Universities: Harvard University, University of Washington-Seattle Campus, UCLA, UC Berkeley
• Degrees: Computer Science, Engineering, General Business Administration & Management, Electrical Engineering

Opening one of these gives you a working example of how a report is structured before you search for your own topic.

A note on newer data

The site notes that new data is available through Deloitte's PeoplePrism, covering population insights such as healthcare access, with state-level coverage across all 50 states (for example, California, New York, and Texas health coverage). Additional topics — Food Pantry Access, Food Insecurity, and Skills & Job Market — are marked as coming soon. New additions from PeoplePrism are flagged with the Deloitte logo, so you can tell them apart from the standard reports.

Common snags

• Wrong entity type. Searching a job title when you meant an industry returns a different report. Check the category label on the result.
• Comparing across types. Only compare like with like; mixed comparisons are not meaningful.
• Skipping the download. If you plan to do your own calculations, pull the data file instead of transcribing figures.
• Assuming a topic exists. Some topics are listed as coming soon, so they are not yet available as full reports.

Quick reference