The Census of Governments identifies the scope and nature of the nation's state and local government sector; provides authoritative benchmark figures of public finance and public employment; classifies local government organizations, powers, and activities; and measures federal, state, and local fiscal relationships.
The United States Code, Title 13, Section 161, requires that this census be taken.
All state and local governments in the United States. Local governments include:
Data are obtained about how governments are organized, how many people they employ and payroll amounts, and the finances of governments.
Government organization data include:
Finance and employment data are the same as in comparable annual surveys and include revenues, expenditures, debt, assets, number of employees (by full-time and part-time status), payroll, and benefits for both state and local governments.
Every five years since 1957, for years ending in '2' and '7.'
Public releases include data as well as summary reports. Data users should reference annual surveys and programs for details.
Two federal statistical agencies–the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Federal Reserve Board–use the data to measure the nation's economic and financial performance. State and local governments use the data to develop programs and budgets, assess financial conditions, and perform comparative analyses.
In addition, analysts, economists, market specialists, and researchers need these data to measure the changing characteristics of the government sector of the economy and to conduct public policy research. Journalists report on, and teachers and students learn about, their governments' activities using our data. Internally, the Census Bureau uses these data as a benchmark for all our non-census year samples.