The Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker (https://tracktherecovery.org) combines anonymized data from leading private companies – from credit card processors to payroll firms – to provide a real-time picture of indicators such as employment rates, consumer spending, and job postings across counties, industries, and income groups.

All of the data displayed on the Economic Tracker can be downloaded here. In collaboration with our data partners, we are making this data freely available in order to assist in efforts to inform the public, policymakers, and researchers about the real-time state of the economy and the effects of COVID-19.

Anyone is welcome to use this data; we simply we ask that you:

1. List the name of the data provider(s) for the particular series you use.

2. Attribute our work by citing or linking to the accompanying paper and the Economic Tracker at https://tracktherecovery.org.

"The Economic Impacts of COVID-19: Evidence from a New Public Database Built Using Private Sector Data", by Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Nathaniel Hendren, Michael Stepner, and the Opportunity Insights Team. November 2020. Available at: https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/tracker_paper.pdf

The data dictionary lists each data file and variable available for public use, with short descriptions of the contents of each variable.

View Data Dictionary on Github

Download Data Dictionary as PDF

The data documentation provides an overview of the data sources and processing applied to each data series.

View Data Documentation on Github

Download Data Documentation as PDF

The data revisions document describes adjustments made to the posted data over time caused by changes in data processing or data sources.

View Data Revisions on Github

Download Data Revisions as PDF

The academic paper provides a detailed description of the data sources and processing methodology, along with economic analysis.

Download Academic Paper as PDF

Opportunity Insights is committed to the rigorous protection of individual and business privacy and fidelity to academic integrity through independent, non-partisan research and policy analysis.

The data reflected in the Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker are aggregated, de-identified, and do not reveal information about specific individuals, transactions, or businesses. Opportunity Insights is a leader in ​developing privacy protection tools​ and methods, and all data releases follow rigorous protocols to protect individual privacy.

Each external organization that has contributed data to the Economic Tracker has done so with the explicit understanding that Opportunity Insights will use the contributed data in the Economic Tracker without precondition, subject to the data privacy standards set by data providers and any associated regulatory protections.

The Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker is a freely available public good. Opportunity Insights will never sell or monetize data and will not share the underlying data from the Economic Tracker with any third party (including any Opportunity Insights​​ funder​).