Appropriations Update
Federal Government Shut Down
With the start of Fiscal Year 2026 on October 1, 2025, most of the federal government shut down. As outlined earlier in a Commerce Department memo, most Census Bureau staff were furloughed, with the exception of a few key staff plus a contingent focused on the 2026 Census Test.
Fiscal Year 2026 Funding
While we don’t know when the government will reopen, scuttlebutt in DC has been that the House and Senate would look to move a “minibus” or two – packages of multiple appropriations bills – soon thereafter. The Commerce Justice Science (CJS) Appropriations bill, which funds the Census Bureau, is unlikely to be in the first package.
Both Senate and House Appropriations Committees already passed their respective CJS bills, but neither side of Congress has brought them to the floor for a vote.
The Census Project led a letter signed by a diverse coalition of 67 national, state and local business, nonprofit and academic entities, urging final approval of funding for the U.S. Census Bureau in Fiscal Year 2026 (FY 2026), as soon as the government shutdown is over, because FY 2026 is a critical planning year for the constitutionally mandated 2030 national headcount. Read the letter and the press release.
As soon as FY 2026 appropriations negotiations resume, the coalition urged Congress to support the House-passed funding level, and called for removal of a rider that would disrupt all census data collection: “Specifically, we request that the final FY 2026 CJS bill provide the Census Bureau with no less than $1.6765 billion—the amount recommended by the House Appropriations Committee and requested by the Administration. We also strongly urge that Section 605, a provision in the House bill, be stricken.”
The letter noted that: “…The bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee includes a policy provision, Section 605, that we fear will adversely affect the quality and availability of census survey data—especially for small populations and areas. Section 605 states that ‘None of the funds in this Act may be used to enforce involuntary compliance, or to inquire more than twice for voluntary compliance with any survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census.’”
Policy Update
Nomination Advances for Commerce Undersecretary for Economic Affairs
Joyce Meyer’s nomination to be the Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee on a 15-13 vote on October 21, 2025. She now awaits a vote on the Senate floor. If confirmed to this position, Meyer will oversee the Census Bureau, among other parts of the Department of Commerce.
Layoffs at the Census Bureau
In an October 13 story, Bloomberg Government confirmed that approximately 100 Census Bureau employees recently received a reduction-in-force layoff notice due to the ongoing federal government shutdown and a “lack of funds.” The affected employees, who are located at the Bureau’s call center in Tucson, Arizona, would be laid off beginning in early December. The Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau’s parent agency, has laid off about 300 employees. Overall, 4,000 federal employees received RIF notices as a result of the shutdown. The firings were temporarily lifted as a result of an October 17 federal court ruling.
Statisticians Warn House Bill Provision Would Drive up Census Costs While Reducing Accuracy
Statisticians are concerned that Section 605 in the House Fiscal Year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill “would prohibit the Census Bureau from making more than two contact attempts for any survey. While this directive might appear to reduce costs, it would, in practice, undermine the nation’s statistical infrastructure, distort representation, and erode the precision of the data on which communities, businesses, and governments depend.” The October 21, 2025 letter from the American Statistical Association to Congressional leaders goes deeper into the negative impact of this provision, on top of that identified previously by the Census Project and leading business representatives.
Census Coverage Rates for Young Children
A recent study from Dr. William P. O’Hare and Dr. Susana Quiros found that, “the factors driving the high net undercount of young children in the Census are different than those driving the coverage of the total population and indicates that young children should be seen as a special population in the 2030 Census.”
“Two results deserve further attention,” they concluded: “a high correlation between the share of the population in a state living in multi-unit buildings and net young child Census coverage”; and “lack of correlations between self-response rates and young child net coverage.”
One Citizen One Seat Act – H.R. 5743
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX-24) introduced the One Citizen, One Seat Act (H.R. 5743), legislation that would require the U.S. Commerce Secretary to “revise the tabulation of total population by States for the 2020 decennial census… to include only individuals who are citizens of the United States.” Read more in this Census Project blog post.
November 10 Webinar from MACS and The Census Project: BLACKOUT: Communities Without Vital Data
On Monday, November 10 at 1:00 p.m. ET, join us for an important webinar: BLACKOUT: Communities Without Vital Data. Learn what happens if we lose the public data that fuels funding, representation, and private enterprise. Under new proposals in Congress, many rural communities and small population subgroups across the country will be “blacked out” due to insufficient data collection. We’ll explore Canada’s experience adopting similar proposals, why U.S. Census experts predict a majority of annual survey data will be unusable if enacted and what is at risk for vital planning and economic development information. If you would like to attend, please submit your RSVP by noon ET on Friday, November 7. This briefing is open to the media with registration.
October Standard Deviations
In October, census stakeholders shared their views in The Census Project’s Standard Deviations blog series:
- On October 10, Beth Jarosz, Chris Dick and Dorian Caal contended that, counter to a Senator’s claims: the “2020 Census was conducted under difficult circumstances, and was still accurate“; “Census counts were imperfect, but not in the ways you might think”; “Count issues affected both “red” and “blue” states”; “New privacy methods did not affect the number of seats any state has in Congress”; “Within states, differential privacy typically benefited rural areas”; and more.
Requests for Public Comments
Likely due to the government shutdown, there were no Federal Register Notices from the Census Bureau in October.
Census Bureau Releases
The U.S. Census Bureau has launched an effort to hire approximately 1,500 temporary field workers to support operations across six test sites for the 2026 Census Test. This effort is based on a temporary hiring waiver granted by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The 2026 Census Test is the Census Bureau’s first major opportunity to test new and enhanced activities in preparation for achieving a complete and accurate count in the 2030 Census. The Census Bureau is recruiting in the six site locations selected for the 2026 Census Test. Available positions include census takers, outreach assistants, field supervisors, and trainers.
There were no other press releases or data releases from the Census Bureau in October due to the federal government shutdown.
News You Can Use
Below are several articles posted on The Census Project home page in October 2025. For a complete listing, go to: 2025 Media – The Census Project
‘Greater risk’ to 2030 US census if funding not agreed, letter states
ResearchLive
October 30, 2025
New study shows West Virginia has the nation’s greatest increase in internet connectivity
WVNS
October 28, 2025
Virginia Redistricting | How we got here, and what’s next as lawmakers battle it out in state capitol
WVEC/Associated Press
October 27, 2025
US government shutdown: How it affects key economic data publishing
Reuters
October 27, 2025
The States’ Perilous Addiction to Money From Washington
Governing
October 24, 2025
OMB Can Stop Biden’s Race Counting
Wall Street Journal
October 23, 2025
Congress Urged to Scrap Proposed Curb on Census Data Collection
Bloomberg
October 22, 2025
Congress Proposal Threatens Census Quality, Says ASA
MrWeb
October 22, 2025
Unions challenge layoffs for 101 Census Bureau workers in Arizona
Arizona Republic
October 17, 2025
Recruitment begins for US census test
ResearchLive
October 7, 2025
Jim Banks Demands Census Bureau Fix Errors That Gave Dems 6 Extra Seats
The Federalist
October 6, 2025
The Myth of the Affordability Crisis
Unleash Prosperity
October 3, 2025
How NCSL and the Census Bureau Modernized Redistricting
NCSL
October 1, 2025
