LibGuides: Empirical Research and Data Services: United States Data & Statistics

General Statistics

Empirical Legal Research uses data sets and statistics as a foundation for the study of the legal system. There are a number of resources that provide statistical information for use by legal scholars. The sites listed below may serve as a starting point for general collections of statistics.

Explore Census Data (formerly American FactFinder)
This is a new platform for accessing U.S. census data. American FactFinder moved to this new platform on March 31, 2020.
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research
ICPSR contains the largest collection of social science data available. NYU users should create a MyData account using their NYU email address to download data sets.
Statistical Insight, ProQuest
"ProQuest Statistical Insight provides abstracting, indexing, and full text for publications from hundreds of public domain and licensed sources."
American National Election Studies (ANES)
To serve the research needs of social scientists, teachers, students, policy makers and journalists, the ANES produces high quality data from its own surveys on voting, public opinion, and political participation. Central to this mission is the active involvement of the ANES research community in all phases of the project.
The General Social Survey
For five decades, the General Social Survey (GSS) has studied the growing complexity of American society. It is the only full-probability, personal-interview survey designed to monitor changes in both social characteristics and attitudes currently being conducted in the United States.