The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued 
government-wide information quality guidelines under section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001. The OMB section 515 guidelines have been prepared to ensure and maximize the quality, utility, objectivity, and integrity of information disseminated by federal agencies. The guidelines direct each federal agency to issue its own section 515 guidelines. In response to the OMB directive, the guidelines presented here (highlighted in bold) describe procedures the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) will employ to ensure the quality of its information products, including their utility, objectivity, integrity, transparency, and reproducibility. The accompanying text describes steps that RRB is currently taking that conform to these guidelines.
RRB provides information to the public about the current experience of its programs, the projected scope and impact of those programs in the future, and the effect of proposed changes to the Railroad Retirement system. Information products describe the impact of RRB programs on our economy, society, and beneficiary populations and provide detailed demographic and economic information on beneficiaries and covered workers. Those products are used by government planners and policymakers as well as by actuaries, economists and other social scientists, the media, and the public to analyze Railroad Retirement programs and their impact on the nation.