April 2024 Census Project Update

Appropriations Update

Fiscal Year 2024

On March 9, President Biden signed into law a bill, H.R. 4366, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, which funds almost half of all Federal agencies, including the U.S. Census Bureau, through the end of Fiscal Year 2024, which concludes on September 30.

The bill provides the Census Bureau with $1.382 billion, an amount approximately $28 million above the level recommended by the House Appropriations Committee and approximately $120 million below the amount recommended by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Further, the final funding figure is about $220 million below what President Biden had requested in his Fiscal Year 2024 budget and well below the $2 billion that census stakeholders had urged Congress to provide. In addition, the Bureau’s final amount is $103 million below the agency’s FY 2023 funding level.

It is worth noting that prior to passage of the bill in the U.S. Senate, Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) offered an amendment that would have authorized a citizenship question on the decennial census and excluded non-citizens from apportionment counts. The amendment was rejected by a roll call vote of 45-51.

More details about the final FY 2024 funding bill are available in two recent Census Project blogs:

In addition, Steve Jost, consultant to The Census Project, authored a blog regarding potential implications of the Bureau’s reduced FY 2024 spending level.

Fiscal Year 2025

On March 11, President Biden released his proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget, marking the first formal step in the annual appropriations process. Congress will consider the President’s request as it drafts the 12 appropriations bills that fund all Federal agencies, including the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations bill, which supports the U.S. Census Bureau.

President Biden’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY 2025) includes an increase for the U.S. Census Bureau. The President’s Budget recommends $1.6 billion for the Census Bureau, a $93 million increase from the FY 2023 enacted level and a $218 million increase from the FY 2024 enacted level. Per the White House, the proposal “includes funding to support information technology system modernization to improve the collection and analysis of data, funding to improve how the Census Bureau measures the economic wellbeing of Americans over time, and investments in gathering data about Puerto Rico’s people and economy.”

More details about the President’s proposed FY 2025 Census Bureau budget is available in a recent Census Project blog.

Policy Update

White House Announces Revisions to Federal Race and Ethnicity Data Standards

On March 28, the Biden Administration announced revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15: Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity (SPD 15). In a Federal Register notice, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said that “revised SPD 15 replaces and supersedes OMB’s 1997 Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity.”

In a related blog post released by the White House, Dr. Karin Orvis, Chief Statistician of the United States, credited the work of the Interagency Technical Working Group on Race and Ethnicity Standards. In June 2022, this working group, which was comprised of Federal government career staff representing 35 agencies, was tasked with developing recommendations to improve the quality and usefulness of Federal race and ethnicity data. In their final report to OMB, the working group recommended:

Using one combined question for race and ethnicity and encouraging respondents to select as many options as apply to how they identify.
Adding Middle Eastern or North African as a new minimum category.
Requiring Federal agencies to collect “additional detail beyond the minimum required race and ethnicity categories for most situations, to ensure further disaggregation in the collection, tabulation, and presentation of data when useful and appropriate.”

More information about the recommendations and the response from the census stakeholder community and media is available in this Census Project blog.

2030 Census Advisory Committee Members Announced

On March 26 the Census Bureau announced the appointment of 23 members to its new 2030 Census Advisory Committee, including The Census Project’s Co-Director, Mary Jo Hoeksema, and Advisory Committee member, Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the NALEO Educational Fund. The Committee is charged with assisting “the Census Bureau in devising strategies to increase awareness of and participation in the next decennial census, reduce barriers to response and enhance the public’s trust and willingness to respond.”

Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC Issues Report on Administrative Records

On March 14, Asian Americans Advancing Justice/AAJC released a report, “Assessing Availability and Quality of Administrative Records for Asian Americans and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders: Introduction and Federal Database Analysis.” In a press release, the organization said that the report is the first in a series of three that will examine the “different roles administrative records can play in Census Data collection and the subsequent impact on Asian American and NHPI communities.”

Census Bureau News

On March 28, the Census Bureau announced changes recommended to Statistical Policy Directive 15, which updated Federal race and ethnicity data collection standards.

Members of the new 2030 Census Advisory Committee were announced on March 26.

On March 26, the Bureau launched its Business Ecosystem initiative. In its release, the Bureau states that the “initiative aims to leverage the power of technology to enhance our ability to deliver relevant, timely and accurate data products; reduce the public burden when we collect data; employ modern data science techniques; enhance already strong safeguards that protect the confidentiality and integrity of data; and ensure equitable access to data for all stakeholders.”

The new Annual Integrated Economic Survey launched on March 18.

More U.S. counties experienced population gains than losses in 2023, as counties in the South saw faster growth and more Northeast and Midwest counties had population losses turn to gains, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2023 estimates of population and components of change released on March 14.

The U.S. Census Bureau is set to release on April 11 the Demographic Analysis estimates of state and county net coverage error for children ages 0 to 4 in the 2020 Census. This is the first time the Census Bureau is releasing these experimental Demographic Analysis estimates designed to help gauge the accuracy of the 2020 Census count of the nation’s youngest children.

Census Bureau Data Releases

On March 28, the Census Bureau released data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) and a new supplement measuring artificial intelligence (AI).

Data from phase 4.0 of the experimental Household Pulse Survey was released on March 21.

New data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), a survey that measures business conditions and projections on an ongoing basis, were released on March 14.

On March 14, the Census Bureau released the 2021 Nonemployer Statistics (NES).

February 2024 Business Formation Statistics were released on March 12.

On March 12,the Census Bureau released the first publication of the experimental data product, “Monthly Puerto Rico Business Applications.” This experimental data product features four monthly business applications series for Puerto Rico and uses the same methodology for business applications as the existing monthly Business Formation Statistics (BFS).

News You Can Use

Below are several articles posted on The Census Project home page in March 2024. For a complete listing, go to: https://thecensusproject.org/recent-media/.

These are the 10 top-paying U.S. cities where women outearn men
CNBC
March 27, 2024

Gentrification’s impact on school demographics: A study of 3 California cities
Brookings
March 26, 2024

Nonprofit urges US Census Bureau to be more inclusive in 2025 disability count
KXAN
March 26, 2024

These are the top 10 most stressed states and they’re not what you’d expect
Fortune
March 25, 2024

Which small US cities are rising hotspots for financial prosperity?
Albuquerque Journal
March 25, 2024

US new home sales fall; median price lowest in more than 2-1/2 years
Reuters
March 25, 2024

US Census Bureau director talks diversity, new community-focused approach
The GW Hatchet
March 25, 2024

These U.S. counties experienced the largest population declines
USA TODAY
March 24, 2024

Census director underlines importance of rural America
Nebraska Today
March 21, 2024

The fastest-growing and shrinking counties in the US
Business Insider
March 20, 2024

U.S. Population Is Growing Fastest in These Counties
Barron’s
March 19, 2024

New data shows it’s gotten easier to vote in the U.S. since 2000
NPR
March 19, 2024