Transparent by design

Data Lab Methodology

Data Lab publishes reviewed snapshots of official public data. Each page distinguishes source values from calculations performed by Data Driven Tech.

Update pipeline

  1. Fetch the official Census monthly release during a controlled server or CI job.
  2. Save an immutable raw snapshot and SHA-256 checksum.
  3. Normalize suppression values to missing data, validate schema and geography coverage, and reject duplicate observation keys.
  4. Create a versioned normalized snapshot and checksum.
  5. Review deterministic insight candidates, then atomically promote the valid snapshot.

Calculations

Month-over-month change
Latest value divided by the previous month, minus one.
Year-over-year change
Latest value divided by the same month one year earlier, minus one.
Trailing 12-month total
Sum of the latest 12 published monthly observations.
Historical percentile
Share of published monthly observations at or below the latest value.

These are labeled “DDT calculation based on Census Business Formation Statistics.” They are not official Census measures.

Limits

Business applications are administrative filings, not a count of businesses currently operating. Projected formations estimate future employer-business formations from an application cohort; they are not current-month startup counts. Historical values may be revised by Census.