American Default Research

What American Default Research does

American Default Research exposes six read-only research tools for studying U.S. household financial distress. Its data covers economic indicators, county scorecards, the American Distress Index (ADI), and statistically validated relationships between indicators. Results are designed as compact research snapshots rather than unrestricted database access, and include dates, original publishers, and citation formats such as APA, MLA, Chicago, and news copy when applicable.

The indicator registry contains 121 entries. Individual snapshots can include the latest value, unit, reporting frequency, direction, period averages, extremes, sustained runs, and editorial text. Historical series are not returned by the MCP indicator tools; where available, full histories can be accessed from the corresponding public JSON endpoint.

How it works

The hosted service uses Streamable HTTP at https://mcp.americandefault.org/mcp. A compatible MCP client sends tool calls to that endpoint, so normal use does not require a local process, account, API key, data download, or conversation history. Anonymous requests are limited to 10 calls per minute and 60 calls per hour per IP block. Higher-volume access can be requested through the public documentation, while static JSON endpoints are intended for permitted bulk downloads.

The service validates inputs and returns errors for invalid indicator slugs or county codes instead of generating substitute results. County lookups use FIPS codes, including four-digit values that receive an implicit leading zero. The /up path provides a hosted HTTP health endpoint.

Setup and configuration

Add the hosted endpoint as a custom MCP connection in a compatible client. Cursor configuration uses the following structure:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "american-default-research": {
      "url": "https://mcp.americandefault.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cline requires the transport to be stated explicitly:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "american-default-research": {
      "type": "streamableHttp",
      "url": "https://mcp.americandefault.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude can connect through its custom connector settings. Cloning the public repository alone does not create a complete local data installation; the hosted endpoint is the normal connection method.

Tools and capabilities

• search_indicators finds registry entries by substring and prefix matches across slugs, names, and categories. Results include public URLs and can be limited to 50 matches.
• get_indicator returns the legacy v1 compact snapshot for a selected slug.
• get_indicator_v2 requires response_version: "v2" and adds comparison-safety fields such as trend_suppressed and series_breaks. Use it when comparing readings.
• get_county_scorecard returns a county’s 0–100 composite score, rankings, five domain scores, findings, and citations for one of 3,144 counties.
• get_adi_composite returns the latest quarterly ADI reading, band, historical rank, methodology context, and five-domain breakdown.
• get_cross_correlations returns only relationships that pass the service’s full validation process. Empty results are normal for many indicators.

Limitations and notes

The tools are read-only and do not expose private homeowner records, arbitrary SQL, the underlying warehouse, or financial transactions. The ADI describes current conditions and does not forecast outcomes. Treat indicator comparisons carefully: v2 can flag suppressed trends and series breaks, and historical indicators are not presented as current. Full historical data, when available, must be retrieved separately from the public indicator JSON endpoint. Attribution to American Default Research is requested, and source data remains subject to each publisher’s terms.