Business Leaders Urge Making 2020 Census Funding a Priority in Final Fiscal Year

Seventy-four American business leaders urged Congressional appropriators to “prioritize funding” for the 2020 Census, a “fundamental civic responsibility.”

A group of American business leaders wrote to express their “support for sufficient funding for the 2020 Census.” They included members of the Business for the 2020 Census Task Force, and “executives and senior leaders from major companies as well as national, state and local business membership organizations.”

The group said they were “united” in their “conviction that a reliable 2020 Census is critical for American enterprise.”

Although “grateful for the increased support the 2020 Census received in Fiscal Year 2019,” they recognized “a substantial risk of an inaccurate count without proper funding in Fiscal Year 2020.” The letter, in line with the funding levels requested previously by the Census Project coalition, urged “$8.45 billion in Fiscal Year 2020, with at least $7.5 billion in direct funding for 2020 Census operations.” The requested levels as “consistent with historical trends showing that the amount of funding needed in the fiscal year in which the Census takes place is at least twice the funding level of the prior fiscal year.”

The importance of the 2020 Census to American business was a particular focus of a Joint Economic Committee hearing in May at which Howard Fienberg from the Census Project testified.