The Census Project, late last week released a detailed action plan for Congress and the Census Bureau to collaborate on improving official annual statistics vital to serving all of America�s communities. As you know, we have raised the alarm that America�s essential data are at risk due to nearly flat funding of the ACS in recent years. Data quality issues threaten its future.
Each of the last two years we have issued detailed reports on how vital the ACS has become, and how pervasive its use, and each time we were pressed by Congress and others for the specific improvements needed, and now we are releasing a comprehensive plan, that if acted upon can ensure Americans can expect better, more timely and new data to serve the nation.
This new report recommends ACS enhancements that include 1) developing new ACS data products to address more complex public policy challenges; 2) fully integrating the ACS in the Bureau�s enterprise transformation efforts; 3) accelerating research to advance the use of administrative records and alternative data sources in the ACS to improve data quality and reduce respondent burden; 4) enhancing ACS nonresponse follow up operations to get higher response rates and address inequitable data quality; 5) an increase in the annual survey sample size to better serve rural, remote and underserved areas of the country; 6) revising content to improve data quality even beyond the new race & ethnicity and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) questions; and 7) increased funding by Congress to the ACS program overall.
The Census Project�s FY 2025 funding recommendation addressed these needed ACS investments. (It also included other initiatives as well, including stabilizing the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), strengthening the Population Estimates program, and investing in modernizing enterprise data infrastructure at the Bureau). This year, over 120� national, state and local organizations joined a letter to Congress in support of the Census Project�s recommended Fiscal Year 2025 budget for the Census Bureau.
Altogether, these enhancements totaled just $400 million, with the ACS accounting for most of this recommended amount. The report lays out how such a small funding increase can overcome the threats to the program and provide a significant return on investment in the form of greatly improved data for the nation�s communities. Funding levels over the last decade for the ACS have not kept pace with the growing national population or inflation. The current ACS sample size cumulated across five years is now much smaller than the last long-form sample in the 2000 Decennial, in part because the nation�s population has increased since 2000 by more than 51 million people and the number of housing units by almost 28 million more.
In the coming days The Census Project will release the latest version of their comprehensive annual report on the ACS first released in 2022.
