SUSA represents a true step forward in helping people and communities help themselves, and achieve positive, measurable social impact.
Sharon King, President of the F.B. Heron Foundation
The State of the USA (SUSA) is both a growing organization and the name of a planned website. The website is not yet active, but it is under construction and expected to be available in 2009. When SUSA’s website is fully completed, it will display data from a range of public and private sources, including federal, state and local agencies; the business community; and nongovernmental organizations.
The purpose of the website you are viewing now is to introduce audiences to SUSA’s organization and its landmark initiative, which will assemble high-quality measures and data that can be used by Americans to educate themselves about the progress of the United States, to encourage an enriched civic dialogue and to support more informed public decision making.
Introduction to the State of the USA
People are hungry for objective sources of information. In today’s polarized society, Americans want ways to cut through biased agendas and find reliable facts about the issues that matter to them.
The State of the USA, Inc. (SUSA), a new nonprofit, will offer a website—as a public service—where every American can get the best available facts drawn from the country’s most respected sources. The site will be easy to use and available around the clock, so that people can find credible, relevant data in minutes or hours.
SUSA’s mission is to unite nonprofits, the media, government decision makers, business leaders, scientists, educators and citizens around a single goal: to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the country’s most pressing issues. SUSA will offer Americans a new tool to help them assess where our nation is moving forward and where it has stalled.
Knowing the state of the USA today and acting on that knowledge is our best opportunity to improve America for all generations.
The State of the USA—with advice from the The National Academies—is assembling a set of key indicators that measure specific conditions or trends. Data from respected statistical sources will help Americans track progress on many issues at many levels of society. Without articulating national goals, SUSA will provide shared, reliable and usable facts to fuel more focused public debate.
People are asking themselves and talking about hard questions: Are our families and neighborhoods safe and secure? Are we getting the best health care for children and the elderly? Are we balancing our energy needs with environmental protections? Is our economy positioned to create the best possible jobs and opportunities to grow wealth? Having a common set of facts as a shared foundation can reinforce accountability for allocating scarce resources to the most crucial problems and the highest impact solutions.
Interest in a common approach to measuring national progress is mounting in the United States and around the world. Hundreds of communities, cities and regions across America and in other countries have already developed key indicator systems. It is now time to set up a key indicator system for the United States as a whole. Why?
As the pace of change accelerates, the country confronts new, complex challenges. At the same time, leaders face growing and often overwhelming volumes of information that they cannot interpret or filter in an efficient manner. The technology now exists to solve this problem simultaneously for our leaders, the media and the public. With this capability, Americans would have an opportunity—and an obligation—to become more active participants in public discourse.