July 31, 2017

You Want Data? FRED to the Rescue.

Austin Frakt posted an old New York Times chart of personal expenditures, and a reader has a question:


The answer, as it is so often, is FRED, the economic data aggregator from the St. Louis Fed. Here it is:

When I use data from FRED, I always include it as a source. Why? Because it’s a great service, and deserves to get more credit. They don’t cover literally everything—for some reason, the Census Bureau doesn’t share its data, for example—but they cover a helluva lot. And once you learn how to use it, you have fast, convenient access to data from dozens of agencies. I probably could have dug up this chart over at the BEA, but it would have taken me a while. FRED made it the work of a few minutes.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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