Data users should be consulted at an early stage in the development of major household surveys focusing on wealth. Early consultation will reveal the preference of users for specific data items to be collected jointly in the same survey and identify those which might be approximated through matching files from other surveys and administrative records.

A study should be made of the relationship of household food consumption and expenditures to determine the extent to which the current Consumer Expenditure Survey might provide current data on trends in food consumption. Consideration should also be given to development of a survey panel to permit detailed analysis of the expenditure patterns of low income households.

Modifications to Existing Statistical Systems

Survey vehicles for the collection of data on the economic status of households should be sufficiently flexible to be able to respond to changing data requirements for policy analysis. Use of a relatively stable set of core data items should permit timely release of continuing series while additional modules are processed separately.

The major continuing surveys designed to monitor changes in the economic status of households should also include an option for an additional quarter at the end of the regular data collection period. This will permit data collection which cannot be accommodated during the regular survey period and testing of collection methods.

Use of existing administrative and survey files should be made to improve the accuracy of estimates and to provide a more complete assessment of economic well-being than can be provided through a single data set. Survey and administrative files should be designed to facilitate matching which can be accommodated within limitations required to protect confidentiality.

Abbreviated data sets should be employed to improve the description of economic status and to improve the results of file matches. For example, a summary set of data from the Current Consumer Expenditure Survey should be seriously considered for inclusion in the Survey of Income and Program Participation.

Selected improvements in the measurement of income which are successfully tested for the Survey of Income and Program Participation should be incorporated into the Current Population Survey. The integrity of the employment and unemployment estimates derived from the CPS should be protected

by use of a CPS test panel to determine the effect of additional questions.

Development of New Systems to Fill Data Gaps

The Bureau of Economic Analysis measures of personal income by size class should be expanded initially to include income after the payment of personal income and social insurance taxes: subsequently they should be broadened further to include disposable personal income, consumer expenditures, and personal savings.

Improvement of Statistical Program Methodology, Analysis, and Dissemination

An interagency task force should identify practical methodologies for measuring the distribution of income in kind. The study should evaluate the alternative methodologies of collecting direct survey data and using indirect estimating procedures for selected components.

The Interagency Committee on Income. Distribution should prepare a report on federal requirements for data on the distribution of household wealth. The report should provide a basis for the development of wealth statistics pending the establishment of a continuing developmental program within the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Labor

Statistical Planning, Research, and Development

The Bureau of Labor Statistics should establish a standing advisory committee on statistical methodology and procedure and on changes in the state of the statistical processing art.

Modifications to Existing Statistical Systems

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program should be refocused with the advent of the Mid-Decade Census program (1985) so that the Census occupational data will provide the core OES data and States and areas, with technical support from BLS, will augment the core data on an asneeded basis.

Government employment, accounting for about 15 percent of the employed work force, should be appropriately represented in all wage, hours, and benefits data series.

Possibilities of expanding the 790 program should be examined for such needs as better monthly industrial coverage and union membership.

More information should be collected on unemployed persons who have exhausted their insurance benefits.

The May CPS question on union membership should be dropped.

Development of New Systems to Fill Data Gaps

A comprehensive data set that would provide for an integration of labor force analysis based on the same sample frames at the national, State, and local levels should be worked toward with priority being given to national-level data.

Work toward determining the feasibility of obtaining a comprehensive integrated data set on the distribution of workers by demographic characteristics, industry, area, occupations, wage rates, hours worked and hours paid for, and weekly earnings and benefits should be undertaken.

A measure of total inputs should be constructed for improved productivity measures.

Improvement of Statistical Program Methodology, Analysis, and Dissemination

The CPS sample frame should be continuously evaluated and updated.

Population

Statistical Organization and Coordination

Data collected as part of the decennial census under a pledge of confidentiality should remain confidential for a period of time beyond which injury to an individual or his family could occur. That period should be extended (e.g., 125 years), if not in perpetuity. The Bureau of the Census should develop appropriate methods for meeting the needs of historians and researchers.

Statistical Planning, Research, and Development

The Bureau of the Census should initiate or continue activities to: (1) develop estimators to adjust population data to account for persons not enumerated in the previous census, and (2) develop better methods for estimating migration, particularly between Puerto Rico and the mainland.

A national policy should be developed concerning the necessity, or the desirability, of providing detailed data on many or all racial and ethnic groups.

Statistical Organization and Coordination

The Bureau of Labor Statistics should have access to the Standard Statistical Establishment List developed and maintained by the Bureau of the Census.

Statistical Planning, Research, and Development

The exclusion of the rural population from the scope of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) should be reexamined to ascertain if rural families' consumption of goods and services is like or unlike that of the urban population and if there are major differences in the places in which urban and rural populations shop.

The family budget task force of the Statistical Policy Coordination Committee should provide guidance to BLS concerning changes which should be made in the family budget program in order to achieve the purposes for which the program is used.

An effort toward developing a conceptual framework for built-to-order goods should be started with the goal of incorporating data about these commodities as well as commodities included in the Tuesday Spot Market Price Index into the Industrial Price Index program as part of the revision effort now underway.

The need for expansion of local area and population subgroup CPI's should be carefully examined in both analytic and policy contexts. Until that examination has been completed, these less aggregate CPI's should not be expanded beyond the current program.

Further study should be undertaken on the frequency of pricing for the CPI program.

Modifications to Existing Statistical Systems

The producer price program should be improved using the recommendations in the Ruggles' report for

the Council on Wage and Price Stability.

The international price program should be expanded to cover 100 percent of the value of all imports and all exports.

Development of New Systems to Fill Data Gaps

The Continuing Consumers Expenditure Survey (CCES), for which funds are requested in the FY 1979 budget, should be designed so that separate analyses of the income and expenditure patterns of major population groupings (e.g., the poor, the elderly, etc.) can be made.

Production and Distribution

Statistical Planning, Research, and Development

A checklist of secondary activities in the Industrial Directory would be useful to provide estimates of a particular economic activity, where that activity is done as a secondary (rather than a primary) activity. Modifications to Existing Statistical Systems

Collection of labor force data should be reduced on Census forms when the Industrial Directory is functioning.

The County Business Patterns should be expanded to include all establishments of all industries rather than only those representing about two-thirds of the U.S. labor force.

Data-gathering surveys for the movement of goods should be integrated with the other economic censuses, and the source of the data should be shifted somewhat to the carrier.

Development of New Systems To Fill Data Gaps

Data on business activities of governments should be collected and published in a format similar to, or combined with, that of the private sector statistics.

Improvement of Statistical Methodology, Analysis, and Dissemination

The Census Bureau should tabulate and publish industry data collected by other agencies in a format which is as compatible as possible with existing Census Bureau programs.

Science and Technology

Statistical Organization and Coordination

The National Science Foundation (NSF) should continue to foster and develop statistical co

ordination in the field of science and technology and the use of a uniform taxonomy for manpower statistics.

Modifications to Existing Statistical Systems

NSF should focus on improving the availability and quality of data on the utilization of personnel in science and technology, particularly in the social sciences and among women and minorities.

NSF should stimulate improvement and expansion of financial data for science and technology activities, with particular reference to private funding and expenditures for research and development activities, scientific observation and measurement, and patent and license activities.

Transportation

Statistical Organization and Coordination

The Department of Transportation (DOT) should establish a Transportation Statistics Center that would be responsible for the collection of all statistical data for DOT and for the integration of all administrative data obtained by DOT modal agencies with the statistical data collected by the Center.

Data collection and analysis should focus on transportation as a whole, including intermodal relationships, in addition to providing information about modal activities and events.

The Department of Transportation should establish a cooperative Federal-State program through which survey standards and procedures would be developed for use by all, resulting in more uniform (and, therefore, combinable and/or analyzable) data than now exists.

Modifications to Existing Statistical Systems

There should be an expansion of the commodity transportation survey coverage to include additional goods and shippers.

The National Truck Commodity Flow Study should be conducted every five years; should provide data for States; and should be examined for possible incorporation with the Census Bureau survey on Truck Inventory and Use or other data collected by State highway and transportation agencies.

The Rail Carload Waybill Sample should be put into machine-readable form; should include date of delivery; and the sample should be augmented so tabulations can be made for commodities or for original destination.

Data on State and local government financing of transportation needs to be expanded, and definitions should be more compatible with their transportation statistics.

The Truck Inventory and Use Survey conducted by Census should be expanded to include coverage of buses and of trucks owned or operated by Federal, State, and local governments.

Civil Rights

Statistical Organization And Coordination

An interagency task force, coordinated by the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards and the General Accounting Office, should be established to develop standards necessary for improved civil rights data collection, reporting, and use.

Statistical Planning, Research, and Development

The interagency task force should accept, as its initial responsibility, the development of guidelines for Federal civil rights recordkeeping and datacollection plans.

Improvement of Statistical Program Methodology, Analysis, and Dissemination

The interagency task force should conduct studies leading to the development of standards for civil rights data collection and use. The standards to be developed and applied should include the specification of appropriate statistical measures of discrimination; the specification of appropriate vehicles for the statistical measurement of discrimination; policies delineating the respective roles of the several Federal departments and agencies in the collection, analysis, and use of civil rights data; and guidelines for State and local government and industry use of nationally produced civil rights data.

Confidentiality

Statistical Organization and Coordination

All agencies involved in the collection of statistical or research data should have mandated legislative protection for the confidentiality of information collected or otherwise obtained to be used solely for statistical or research puposes. This should apply to both commercial and personal data. The legislation should also provide that, in certain circumstances, specific grants of confidential privilege for particular types of data could be granted by a responsible official under legal guidelines. This arrangement would be appropriate primarily for statistical or research activities carried out in or sponsored by

agencies which are not solely oriented to statistices or research. In either case the protection should be strong enough to provide immunity from compulsory legal process and Freedom of Information Act disclosure.

The uses of statistical data must be restricted to prevent their use in identifiable form for making determinations which affect a particular respondent.

Exchange of data among the protected enclaves should be feasible under controlled conditions. The first step in achieving this situation is the enactment of a clear legal status as "protected enclaves" for selected statistical and research agencies in the major departments, and for other clearly identified statistical and research units within other agencies. The enclaves must be insulated from intervention and from unauthorized access to data. At a minimum, this would require:

1. A statement at the time of data collection about the (general) character of potential statistical uses;

2. A review agency with oversight responsibility, such as OFSPS, with the power to authorize transfers (OMB has restricted authority in the Federal Reports Act for authorizing transfers among agencies under its jurisdiction);

3. A clear set of criteria specifying when the transfer of identifiable data would qualify as being of sufficient public interest to justify the transfer; and

4. A set of procedures to provide for removal of identifiers or destruction of the basic data files. after the purposes of the transfer have been achieved.

Administrative data sets accessible to statisticians and researchers in "protected enclaves" should be protected by law from uses which could affect the rights, benefits, or privileges of individuals or institutions.

In conjunction with the steps recommended above, the development of alternative techniques which would increase the amount of detailed microdata which can be made available to the public should continue.

Controls on record linkage and the criteria for exchange of linked data need careful conceptual development to ensure that agencies adhere to the basic purposes and principles of confidentiality. Standards for the quantity and quality of data to be linked and specifications of time intervals for retention of individual identifiers should be established. Ethical standards and penalties for abuse of these standards should be the subject of wide professional review. Certain technical and engineering questions concerning the security of data files, particularly computerized files, should be explored further.

The statistical profession has a responsibility for demonstrating to the public the benefits of statistical data gathering, protection, and linkage. The many constructive features of the Privacy Act of 1974 must be promoted. In these ways, the credibility and effectiveness of Federal statistical activities will be enhanced in the future.

Federal-State-Local Cooperative Statistical Systems

Statistical Organization and Coordination

The Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards should establish mechanisms to coordinate the activities of the several Federal agencies sponsoring cooperative statistical programs. In addition, a focal point should be established in each of the States to coordinate State-level input to the Federal level on the cooperative systems.

Statistical Planning, Research, and Development

The appropriate role of the Federal Government and the limits of Federal responsibility for the cooperative statistical programs must be defined. The definition of the role and responsibility of the Federal Government must include, at a minimum, policies with respect to the degree to which the cooperative systems should focus on data production in contrast to data utilization; the extent to which non-Federal needs for State and local area data should be incorporated and the associated costs for their production and use underwritten by the Federal Government; and the appropriate division of labor and costs among cooperative program participants at the Federal, State, and local levels.

Each Federal agency should establish mechanisms to ensure that its Federal-State cooperative system of data collection is systematically integrated with the agency's overall statistical program.

Each of the Federal agencies should review the status of its cooperative statistical program as a basis for determining the nature and scope of technical and financial assistance needed by the States.

Improvement of Statistical Program Methodology, Analysis, and Dissemination

General and agency-specific guidelines and standards should be developed for and applied to the collection of data through the cooperative statistical programs.

To address the need for standards development and application in the cooperative programs, the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards should promulgate adequate general guidelines for standards to be met in the funding and operation of Federal-State-local cooperative statistical systems. Based on these guidelines, each agency should review the status of its standards development, initiate activities necessary to develop standards in areas found to be lacking, and integrate the standards into program operations as a condition of State participation.

Industrial Directory

Statistical Organization and Coordination

The Industrial Directory should be implemented on an interagency basis immediately; this implementation should not be delayed pending the outcome of statistical reorganization activities.

Statistical Planning, Research, and Development

Legislation to ensure statistical agency access to the Industrial Directory should be developed. Modifications to Existing Statistical Systems

The Industrial Directory should be expanded to include all businesses and also all government units on a basis as similar as possible to establishments in the private sector.

The Industrial Directory should provide for an indication of secondary activities of establishments. Interagency Funding

Statistical Organization and Coordination

Each Federal Department should have at least one statistical center for each major functional area within its jurisdiction. The statistical centers should have an explicit mission to perform statistical work for other agencies.