Sources

Every figure on this site traces to one of the datasets below. Each was retrieved on a recorded date, archived in the repository that builds the site, and is re-checked against its source before any page can be generated.

Adjustments

51recomputed on every build

CPI-W months

630

Medicare years

22

Parameter series

11

The datasets

Licence and attribution

Publications of the Social Security Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are works of the United States federal government and are in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. §105. Three obligations attach and all three are honoured throughout this site.

• Retrieval date and non-vouching notice for BLS data. Every page that renders a BLS figure carries the retrieval date and the statement that BLS.gov cannot vouch for data or analyses derived from these data after retrieval.
• No agency emblem is reproduced anywhere. The BLS emblem is a federally registered trademark, and agency seals are protected. No agency mark exists as a file in this site’s repository, and the build fails if one appears.
• Numbers and text only, never imagery. Photographs and illustrations embedded on federal sites may carry third-party copyright even where the surrounding text does not.

Access notes worth recording

Several of these sources are difficult to retrieve reliably, and the workarounds are part of the methodology rather than incidental. cms.gov blocks automated retrieval outright, so every Medicare figure is read from the Federal Register text on govinfo — which is also the legally authoritative version. The BLS public data API returns a maintenance response without a registered key; the published flat file needs none and is used instead. And a maintenance page that returns a success status has been observed serving in place of data, so the ingest detects it by content rather than by status code.

The full methodology, including every place a source and our arithmetic disagree.

Related

• Methodologygates and rounding
• COLA computationthree regimes
• Correctionsthe dated log
• Editorial policystandards
• Aboutwho publishes this
• Contactreport an error