United States Census Bureau

The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a federal statistical agency under the United States Department of Commerce, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. Besides the decennial population count it conducts perpetual demographic surveys and economic surveys of manufacturing, retail, service and other establishments and of domestic governments, some of them sponsored by agencies such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Science Foundation. The Census Act of 1840 established a central office that became known as the Census Office, and the bureau commits to confidentiality and non-disclosure of personal information.