Lewis & Clark Libraries: Numbers: Simple Datasets

Simple Datasets

data.census.gov (replaces American Factfinder)
Census data on population, housing, businesses, education, income and more.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)
Includes 267,000 US and international time series from 80 sources.
FiveThirtyEight Data
Reusable datasets on politics and sports from 538.
Freedom House
Measures various indices of political freedom around the world. Separate reports on democracy, press freedom, and internet freedom are also available.
General Social Survey
A biennial personal interview survey of U.S. households conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and "is widely regarded as the single best source of data on societal trends".
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The survey was conducted every year from 1972 to 1994 (except in 1979, 1981, and 1992). Since 1994, it has been conducted every other year. The website gives access to the data itself, as well as survey documentation, reports on methodological issues & uses of the data, quick downloads (by year), a bibliography and information on the variables.
Northwest Open Data Exchange
Partnered with Portland State University, the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies makes data related to the Pacific Northwest region available from PSU researchers and students.
R Datasets
A variety of freely available and sometimes quirky CSV files, from "Weight Data for Domestic Cats" to "Ants on Sandwiches."

Roper iPoll This link opens in a new window
NOTE: users need to create a personal account to download data and documents. A unique, rich data source for US public opinion topics. It includes 650,000 questions and answers from 1935 through last week, gathered from all the major polling organizations in the country (Gallup, Harris, Pew, etc.)

World Bank Open Data
The World Bank's premier annual compilation of data. World Development Indicators alone includes 1431 time series data categories.
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The tables cover 152 economies and 14 country groups-with basic indicators for a further 56 economies.
World Values Survey
A global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life, led by an international team of scholars and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.