[3]Washington, DC (August 3, 2009) - Dr. Rebecca Blank, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, delivered the keynote address to the 2009 Joint Statistical Meeting, a meeting of the American Statistical Association (ASA), the International Biometric Society (ENAR and WNAR), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), and the Statistical Society of Canada comprised of over 5,000 statisticians from government, industry and academia meeting at the Washington Convention Center. Dr. Blank spoke about why good statistics are important to understanding the well-being of American families.