Public Policy

Pew Global Attitudes examines international public opinion on a broad range of issues, from people’s assessments of their own lives to views about the current state of the world.

This project project provides independent public opinion survey research about American attitudes toward politics and policy. Formerly, the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press (1990-1995), the Center has been sponsored by The Pew Charitable Trusts since 1996. Major reports examine long-term trends in political values, U.S. views on policy issues and priorities and political knowledge and news interest.

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

There are links to the individual projects from this gateway site.

Pew Research is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization and a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. All of its reports and datasets are made freely available in order to inform the public, the press and policymakers.

Current news, polls and predictions covering the United States Congress and the President. Includes the Almanac of American Politics, which profiles of current members of Congress and other elected officials.  National Journal Subscriber also includes: National Journal Magazine, National Journal Daily, National Journal Hotline, Daybook, and columns such as The Cook Report.

Statista includes ready-made statistical charts, graphs and tables on marketing, demographics, communication, technology, politics, health, leisure and public opinion polls.  About 20 percent of the data in Statista comes from government sources like the World Bank and the U.S. Census.  The rest comes from industry, marketing, and trade groups. The tables, charts and graphs can be downloaded as images or into Microsoft Powerpoint and Excel.

Public Affairs Index is a bibliographic database covering all aspects of national and global contemporary public policy issues ranging from public health, the environment, housing, human and civil rights, to international commerce and conflict. This database draws from a diverse array of scholarly journals, conference papers, trade publications and government documents to provide up-to-date information on a broad range of topics of concern to the world today.

Replaces GPOAccess as the digital repository for United States government publications and documents. 

Collection of directories, encyclopedias and guides on US politics and policy from CQ Press.  Includes Washington Information Directory.  

Provides access to statistical information produced by U.S. Federal agencies, private companies, and intergovernmental organizations. Create maps and reports from data you select from over 640 datasets.  Subjects include health, crime, population, finance, industry, and marketing.

Data is available for the world as a whole or for selected countries. Data for the U.S. are shown by state, often by county, sometimesby census tract and zip code. Time series data may go back several decades.

Data sources include the U.S. government, the World Bank, Dow Jones, Dun & Bradstreet, Mergent, and Standard & Poors.

The University Library has Dataets Basic Subscription, which does not include EASI Market Planner, IMF data or data from the U-M China Data Center.  U-M China Data Center is available from China Data Online.