The great federal data disappearing act
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amid the cascade of directives from President Trump, some government datasets have become inaccessible. Researchers, economists and investors are among the people who rely on that data — and there’s a cost when it goes away. Plus, “we will see an increase by tenfold of people dying from AIDS.” We take a hard look at how disruptions to U.S. foreign aid are affecting lifesaving HIV/AIDS treatment and what happens if they aren’t resolved.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When government data goes poof. I'm David Brancaccio, amid the cascade of directives from President |
| 0:07.3 | Trump and the Elon Musk-led team looking for government waste, several sources of government data |
| 0:13.1 | vanished, with the data sets in some cases no longer accessible. Researchers, economists, business |
| 0:18.9 | planners, are among those who can't see them. Marketplaces Kimberly Adams reports there is a cost when data goes away. |
| 0:26.1 | At tax and consulting firm, RSM, data is crucial to help their clients decide how to do business. Joe Brusuelas is RSM's chief economist and has already noticed some key pieces of data related to housing |
| 0:39.0 | and consumer demand are missing. |
| 0:41.8 | Gender, identity, and race are things that I could have looked at a couple months ago. |
| 0:47.0 | Now it's not available. |
| 0:48.8 | What data is and isn't online is in flux, says Amy O'Hara, president of the Association of Public Data Users. |
| 0:57.0 | But the risk of losing key federal data sets has researchers, think tanks, and businesses |
| 1:02.4 | scrambling. You can't always buy a replacement. And what is sold may not be accurate or |
| 1:08.3 | comprehensive. And plus, a lot of of times the organizations that sell data, |
| 1:13.8 | they have used public data to build their models. And buying data that used to be free adds to the |
| 1:20.3 | cost of doing business. Maggie McCullough is CEO of PolicyMap, which sells custom maps and data, |
| 1:26.4 | ranging in costs from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. But PolicyMap, which sells custom maps and data, ranging in costs from thousands to tens of |
| 1:29.1 | thousands of dollars. But PolicyMap also relies on federal data to build many of its products. |
| 1:36.1 | Without that data, you're kind of just flying blind. And she says without detailed data, |
| 1:42.8 | it's harder to invest, run a business, or govern the country. |
| 1:46.9 | In Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams for Marketplace. |
| 1:50.6 | Also, China has a history of turning off uncomfortable economic data, like the youth unemployment rate. |
| 1:56.9 | And there are bipartisan moves in Delaware to go easier on the corporations that choose to register there. |
| 2:03.1 | State lawmakers have now proposed changes to limit the ability of shareholders to sue corporate board members and directors. |
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