CONSUMER COMPLAINTS (CFPB, FCC) The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) receives and posts thousands of consumer complaints about financial products and services. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also receives informal consumer complaints on a weekly basis. These complaints regard a telecom billing or service issue (e.g., TV, phone, internet, radio). CONSUMERCOMPLAINTS.FCC.GOV DATA.CONSUMERFINANCE.GOV CONSUMER FINANCES (FEDERAL RESERVE) The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is normally a triennial (every 3 years) cross-sectional survey of U.S. families. The survey data include information on families’ balance sheets, pensions, income, and demographic characteristics. Information is also included from related surveys of pension providers and the earlier such surveys conducted by the Federal Reserve Board. No other study for the country collects comparable information. Data from the SCF are widely used, from analysis at the Federal Reserve and other branches of government to scholarly work at the major economic research centers. The links to the surveys provide summary results, codebooks/other documentation, & the publicly available data. FEDERALRESERVE.GOV DATA (U.S. GOVERNMENT) There are over 200,000 data sets that the U.S. government offers for public access. Topics include the following: agriculture, climate, education, energy, finance, health, manufacturing, public safety, and many more. DATA.GOV DATAWORLD Here is a site for high-quality open data available after you join or sign in with your Google account. This site make data “meaningful” using Semantic Web technology. This improves data discovery and interoperability so people and machines can unlock its value faster. Datasets are available for projects or to use in the classroom. DATA.WORLD FINANCIAL (CFPB, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN) The CFPB released a public use file (PUF) in September 2017 with a wonderful dataset of 217 columns of data including factors that support consumer financial well-being. A financial well-being score, based upon a 10-item measure, is also included. Additionally, the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center regularly releases survey data about consumer spending and saving decisions. Their ‘The Index of Consumer Expectations’ focuses on three areas: (1) how consumers view prospects for their own financial situation, (2) how they view prospects for the general economy over the near term, and (3) their view of prospects for the economy over the long term. CONSUMERFINANCE.GOV DATA.SCA.ISR.UMICH.EDU GENERAL SOCIAL SURVEY (GSS) The GSS has been a reliable source of data to help researchers, students, and journalists monitor and explain trends in American behaviors, demographics, and opinions. You'll find the complete GSS data set on this site, and can access the GSS Data Explorer to explore, analyze, extract, and share custom sets of GSS data. GSS.NORC.ORG GOOGLE DATASET SEARCH If you thought Google Scholar was a gift to researchers, wait until you check out Google’s newest treat: a search engine for datasets! Dataset Search enables users to find datasets stored across the Web through a simple keyword search. The tool surfaces information about datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the Web, making these datasets universally accessible and useful. Google believe that this project will have the additional benefits of (A) creating a data sharing ecosystem that will encourage data publishers to follow best practices for data storage and publication and (B) giving scientists a way to show the impact of their work through citation of datasets that they have produced. Dr. Natasha Noy, a Research Scientist with Google AI, offers this blog post (Sept 2018) to illustrate her vision for Google’s Dataset Search. TOOLBOX.GOOGLE.COM/DATASETSEARCH NUTRITION (FDA, NHANES, USDA) The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has a relatively new site (as of 2014) called ‘Open FDA’ that provides downloadable data set files regarding nutrition labeling, pharmaceutical labeling, recall enforcement reports, food, and medical devices. This transparency is an effort to “create a new level of openness and accountability, to ensure the privacy and security of public FDA data, and ultimately to educate the public and save lives.” Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics offers a yearly dataset. This data is called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and the first phase of data collection began in 1971. Finally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers a wide variety of data products concerning food & nutrition assistance- among other topics. CDC.GOV/NCHS/NHANES ERS.USDA.GOV OPEN.FDA.GOV PEW RESEARCH CENTER PEW offers a large variety of free data sets that are available after you create an account. Importantly, the data must be used solely for (1) research, scholarly or academic purposes, (2) the internal use of your business (e.g., not for further distribution or resale), or (3) your own personal non-commercial use. Topics include U.S. politics, media & news, social trends (e.g., family roles), religion, internet & tech, science (e.g., women, men in STEM), Hispanics, and global (i.e., attitudes and trends). PEWRESEARCH.ORG PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE (APA) The American Psychological Association (APA) offers a large list of links to data sets and repositories. Behavioral and social science data sets are available. Topics include health & retirement, alcohol abuse, retirement, mental health, and many others. APA.ORG PSYCHOLOGICAL (OPEN) DATASETS As of August 2019, a collection of more than 100 datasets (with hyperlinks) has been organized by Dr. Cameron Brick (Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge). The collection includes mostly large, representative surveys (some with non-psych variables) and some meta-data (e.g., constructs, years, location, et cetera). The development history of this collection is available here. DOCS.GOOGLE.COM PUBLIC POLICY/ SOCIAL (MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY) Michigan State’s Institute for Public Policy & Social Research (IPPSR) has a ‘Correlates of State Policy Project’ available to download as an Excel, Stata, Google Chart, or R-package file. The data include 900+ variables, with observations across the U.S. 50 states and time (1900 – 2016). These variables represent policy outputs or political, social, or economic factors that may influence policy differences across the states. IPPSR.MUS.EDU WEB (GOOGLE) There are more than 100 data providers that contribute to Google’s site for publicly available data. Much of it concerns the internet, but there are also links to a wide variety of other data sources (e.g., world trade organization). GOOGLE.COM/PUBLICDATA