Measurement and Transmission Layers
Engine: Architecture
Framing
Three infrastructure layers enable the engines: measurement (COMPASS), digital transmission (FedCard), and physical transmission (Post Office 2.0). With these layers, the Accord operates as a utility — visible, measurable, and responsive without political discretion.
COMPASS / Census Tract Sensors
Coverage: all US census tracts (approximately 73,000)
Domains: 8 equally weighted (Health, Education, Economic, Housing/Infra, Safety, Environment, Civic, Child/Family)
Metrics per domain: approximately 5 outcome metrics + 5 proximity metrics
Publication: quarterly
Methodology: National Statistics Board-administered, public
Data sources: public (ACS, CDC, HRSA, CMS, FCC, EPA, BJS, FBI, USDA, HUD, NCES, SEDA)
Trigger thresholds: statutory
Shortage indicators (v10.2 addition, 2026-05-01)
In addition to the eight QoL-domain composite scores, COMPASS publishes a suite of shortage indicators — each a structural-gap + pressure-gap pair, county-or-tract level, quarterly. Below-threshold structural OR above-threshold pressure activates the linked Accord program in the affected geography. The suite formalizes the desert-identification metric for programs whose canonical trigger was previously implicit. Eleven indicators in canon as of v10.2:
• Childcare supply (Demographic Continuity / Productive Capacity) — slots per 100 children under 5; waitlist days for infants and toddlers. Triggers the v10.2 Childcare Plan: regional-pool 50/25/25 match (Accord/employer-or-host/family), federal anchor sites at VA/DoD/USPS/GSA, private centers in deserts, and FFN navigators. UCA covers the family 25% share. Sources: Bipartisan Policy Center (national 4.2M shortfall); Center for American Progress (46% of children under 6 in licensed-childcare desert, 2025); Child Care Aware Mapping the Gap.
• Maternity-care desert (Flourishing / Demographic Continuity) — counties without OB/GYN within 60-minute drive; travel time to nearest hospital with OB delivery. Triggers VHA expansion, hospital-takeover, and Distributed Healthcare telehealth. Sources: March of Dimes Maternity Care Deserts Report (~36% of US counties, 2024); HRSA HPSA-OB.
• Trauma-access desert (Flourishing / Defense Capability) — counties without Level I/II trauma center within 60 minutes; median EMS-to-trauma transport time. Triggers hospital-takeover and capacity-payment for rural ER. Sources: American College of Surgeons Verified Trauma Centers; HRSA EMS data.
• Primary-care HPSA (Flourishing / Productive Capacity) — HRSA HPSA-PC designation score; median wait for routine appointment. Triggers VHA expansion, Distributed Healthcare telehealth, and Skills Wallet primary-care credentialing. Source: HRSA (~7,400 PC HPSAs covering 100M+).
• Mental-health-provider shortage (Flourishing / Productive Capacity) — HRSA HPSA-MH score; median wait for first appointment with prescribing clinician. Triggers AHQB safe-harbor for MH practice, telehealth, and Skills Wallet pathway. Source: HRSA (~6,500 HPSAs covering 169M).
• Broadband-access desert (Productive Capacity / Civic Life) — % of households without 25/3 Mbps fixed broadband; median actually-delivered download speed. Triggers the Infrastructure Decay Fund broadband line. Sources: FCC Broadband Data Collection; USDA Rural Utilities Service.
• Transit-job-access shortage (Productive Capacity / Civic Life) — % of zero-vehicle households; jobs accessible by transit within 30 minutes. Triggers the Infrastructure Decay Fund transit line. Sources: U Minnesota Accessibility Observatory (Access Across America); APTA; FTA.
• Food-access desert (Civic Life / Flourishing) — % of tract population in USDA-defined low-access area; distance to full-service grocery. Triggers Post Office 2.0 storefront siting and Community Investment hub deployment. Source: USDA ERS Food Access Research Atlas (~17M people in low-access areas).
• Affordable-housing gap (Civic Life / Demographic Continuity) — cost-burdened renters (>30% of income); months on housing-assistance waitlist. Triggers federal cost-share for affordable construction (Housing portfolio). Sources: HUD American Housing Survey; HUD CHAS.
• Lead service line concentration (Ecological Solvency / Flourishing) — % of homes with lead service lines; lead-action exceedances per year. Triggers the Infrastructure Decay Fund water-systems line. Sources: EPA LCRR state inventories (~9M LSLs); EPA SDWIS.
• Local-news desert (Credibility / Civic Life) — counties without daily/weekly newspaper or local newsroom; news-content production hours per capita. Triggers CPB-administered nonprofit newsroom grants, AI/search content stipends, and 2:1 matched investigative funding (Civic Life portfolio). Sources: Northwestern Local News Initiative; UNC Hussman News Deserts Project (~200 desert counties; ~1,500 more effectively deserts).
Full structured definitions in CFG.compass.shortageIndicators.
FedCard
Issuance: at birth or naturalization
Architecture: modern payment rail analogous to Brazil's PIX or India's UPI
Cost: zero-fee, Treasury-backed
Functions: benefit delivery, health card (Distributed Healthcare), civic module, payment rail for unbanked
Replaces: $170B/year in credit-card interchange fees
FedCard is mandatory for federal benefits delivery but not mandatory for general payment use. Americans can continue to use credit cards, debit cards, cash.
Post Office 2.0
Locations: 31,000 existing USPS facilities
Services: FedCard enrollment, telehealth booths, COMPASS kiosks, bill-pay, check-cashing, voter registration, community meeting space, internet access
Staffing: includes federal employee(s) serving as locality's COMPASS liaison
Privacy and surveillance architecture
Digital Online Safety Board and National Statistics Board together define what data can be collected, aggregated, and published. Individual transaction data is not published; tract-aggregated metrics are. Personal health records are not aggregated; Distributed Healthcare delivers care without feeding COMPASS at the individual level.
Specific thresholds (v10 canonical)
Differential privacy: epsilon ≤ 1.0 for all publicly published tract-level data; epsilon ≤ 0.5 for microdata research access under controlled-access agreements
Data retention: raw FedCard transaction data retained no longer than 90 days; only tract-aggregated metrics retained thereafter; individual-level records purged
Law-enforcement access: National Statistics Board-held identifiable data requires warrant (not subpoena); annual public transparency report on warrant volume, requesting agencies, and case-type breakdown
Civic module data: opt-out default for sharing individual civic-engagement data for any purpose beyond direct benefit delivery
Research data access: opt-in default (no automatic inclusion of individual records in research datasets)
FISA integration: National Statistics Board data is walled off from foreign-intelligence access; any such access requires separate congressional authorization
These thresholds are jointly enforced by Digital Online Safety Board (algorithmic harm and platform oversight) and National Statistics Board (measurement and publication integrity). Violations are subject to civil penalties and personal liability for responsible officials. Thresholds are reviewed every 5 years by joint Digital Online Safety Board-National Statistics Board panel with public comment.