In the flurry of executive orders and policy directives from President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE team, several sources of government data have disappeared — especially those related to race and gender. 

Those federal clearinghouses relied upon by researchers and businesses have gone offline. And while some have come back, there is a cost when data goes away.

At tax and consulting firm RSM, data is crucial to help their clients decide how to do business. Joe Brusuelas is RSM’s chief economist and has already noticed some key pieces of data related to housing and consumer demand are missing.

“Gender, identity and race are things that I could have looked at a couple months ago. Now, it’s not available,” he said.

What data is and isn’t online is in flux, according to Amy O’Hara, president of the Association of Public Data Users. The risk of losing key federal datasets has researchers, think tanks and businesses scrambling.

“You can’t always buy a replacement,” she said, “and what is sold may not be accurate or comprehensive. And plus, a lot of times, the organizations that sell data, they have used public data to build their models.”

Buying the data that used to be free adds to the cost of doing business.

Maggie McCullough is CEO of PolicyMap, which sells custom maps and data, ranging in cost from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. But PolicyMap also relies on federal data to build many of its products.

“Without that data, you’re kind of just flying blind, right?” McCullough said.

And without detailed data, she said that it’s harder to invest, run a business or govern the country.