Methodology: how we source and date
How every figure is sourced and stamped, how every page is dated, and how errors are corrected in the open.
Primary sources first
Every number traces to the agency that published it: Federal Reserve releases, Treasury statements, CBO reports, BLS releases, Congress.gov, FRED. We link the release, not a summary of it.
Two visible dates on everything
Publish date and last-updated date appear on every article and glossary term. Standing explainers are revised in place; the update note says what changed.
Data stamped with an “as of”
Live figures carry the reference period and the retrieval date. A figure that has not been retrieved is not displayed — we show the slot as awaiting its first reading rather than filling it with an estimate. Where a series is revised by the issuing agency, we show the revised figure and note the revision.
Projections labelled as projections
CBO baselines and Fed projections are forecasts under stated assumptions. We name the assumptions when we cite them.
Corrections are public
Errors of fact are corrected in the article with a dated note, and listed on a single corrections page.
Edited, not all hand-written
Every page carries the name of its editor, and that is the accurate word. Some of the explanatory text is drafted or maintained with the help of algorithms and artificial-intelligence systems, and every figure is fetched and formatted by code. All of it is reviewed before publication, and the editor is answerable for it. We say this plainly because a reader deciding how much to trust a page should know how it was made.
Not everything here is a fact
A figure with an “as of” stamp is a fact as the issuing agency published it. The sentences around it — what a number means, why it moved, what usually follows — are interpretation, offered in good faith and open to being wrong. We keep the two visibly distinct, and nothing on this site is advice. The terms of use set out what that means.