Statistical Abstracts of the United States were treasure troves of statistics (once made freely available by the U.S. Government).
Statistical Abstracts are still great one-stop resource for historic statistics - however - only some of the tables provide state-by-state information (some metropolitan area stats but data at the county level).
The Iowa State Data Center is a great place to search for Iowa-focused data on: employment/unemployment, health, housing, income, language, population, poverty, race.
Iowa data is reported at the state, county, or in some cases metropolitan area/city/town level.
State-by-state comparisons are available for many variable.
Data ranges often cover ten to fifteen year spans (e.g. from 2005 to 2016).
County Quick Facts provide population data from 1850 to 2017 as well as current data on age, characteristics of commute to work, disabilities, educational attainment, ethnicity/ancestry, gender, household size, income, occupation (by general category), poverty rates, race, unemployment rates, and veteran status for each county in Iowa.
City Quick Facts (same as above - but for hundreds of Iowa towns and cities).
Statistical Abstract of the U.S. is a commercial database that provides a wide range of demographic and economic national data.
State-by-state comparisons can be found by:
It is possible search earlier editions or all editions of this database (2013-2019) by changing the Select edition option on the first page of this database.
The U.S. Census Bureau (data.census.gov) provides a powerful access to demographic. Data.census.gov will provide data on total population as well as distributions for characteristics such as age, race, gender, education attainment, housing, veteran status, disability status, citizenship status.
STATSAMERICA will allow you to locate demographic data on states, counties, cites/towns, and even neighborhoods.
Options include USA States in Profile, USA Counties in Profile, USA Towns in Profile, and the Big Radius Tool (to find information on regions).