Tag: budget

2020 Census Funding: This Chart Says It All

A Census at Risk - Spending During Four Census Decades
Chart of census spending through four decades by The Census Project. Census 2020 is at the bottom. Sources: Congressional Research Service, Courtesy Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney, D-NY. Final FY2017 appropriation as passed.  FY2018 level reflects the impact of the short term Continuing Resolution as signed by the President on September 8, 2017 with funding through December 8, 2017.

A Census doesn’t happen all at once. While the Census year itself is the most expensive, the Census Bureau has to ramp up for the big count with a decade-long cycle of spending. We can model that cycle by looking at spending each year relative to each decade’s year 1.

For example, the 1990 Census Cycle began in 1981 with $235.1 million (table A). 1982 saw a drop in spending (1981 had included funds to process and publish 1980 Census results). 1983 to 1986 saw budgets more or less similar to 1982. Beginning in 1987, Census budgets rose significantly in preparation for address canvassing in 1988. The next two years saw steep increases as more Census operations kicked in, ultimately culminating in 1990, with a spend of $1.5 billion, fully 6.49 times the 1981 level (table B).

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(Data corrected in October 2017)

Trump Census Budget: Too Little, Too Late

Earlier this week the Trump administration released its FY 2018 census budget proposal to Congress. It wasn’t much better than the so-called “skinny budget” proposal released in April.

President Trump proposes just a $51 million increase in Census Bureau funding for FY 2018. But, next year’s census planning calls for a huge 700,000-household test in three states of the decennial count’s new census-taking techniques relying on the internet and IT to cut costs and provide for a fair and accurate census. It can’t be done by skimping on decennial planning funds.

The chart below shows how decennial planning money was allocated each year over the past 40 years. In each previous decennial census, a large ramp-up occurred in the “8” year of the decennial cycle.

A Census at Risk - Spending During Four Census Decades

If President Trump’s budget is enacted, the nation could be facing an historic census disaster. It’s up to Congress to save the 2020 Census!

The Cycle of Life, Part Two: Time to Ramp It Up

by Terri Ann LowenthalTerri Ann Lowenthal

Last week, I gave a little tutorial on the lifecycle cost of a decennial census. You know: “The seasons, they go round and round, and the painted ponies go up and down.” Up and down are the operative words; right now, the cycle is in up mode. Meaning the Census Bureau needs modest funding increases each year to stay on an efficient, productive research and planning schedule that will save billions of dollars in implementation costs over the entire lifecycle.

Did I just date myself terribly? (“Like” if you remember that song!) But, I digress. President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2014 (FY2014) $982.5 million budget request for the Census Bureau barely budged over his request for the current year. Embedded in that overall agency number is $486 million for the 2020 Census, which includes the ongoing American Community Survey (ACS).

The ACS is really a bargain, folks. Its $242 million price tag is an infinitesimal half a thousandth of a percent of the federal aid directed prudently (Congress enacts the formulas, after all) each year to states and localities for schools, roads and transit systems, rural economic development projects, health care, job training, crime prevention programs, and other state and local activities, based (directly or indirectly) on data the ACS yields annually. Businesses and community-based nonprofits use the data to make billions (and billions and billions) of dollars in investment and program decisions that spur job growth, commerce and economic development. And the survey is now a two-for-one deal: it’s a rolling test bed for new methods and systems that could reduce 2020 Census costs considerably.

Speaking of 2020 (just around the corner… see my last blog post!), the president requested an increase of $154.2 million to finish the research and testing phase, allowing the Census Bureau to select a design framework and move forward with operational and systems development in subsequent years. Key elements of census reform could include broad use of administrative records to keep the address list up-to-date and to identify unresponsive households during the enumeration, as well as multi-mode response options that take advantage of the latest tech gadgets. Without thorough research and testing, the bureau might fall back on a far more expensive (but tried and true) paper and pencil design. Which Congress already has said it won’t pay for, by the way.

As Commerce Inspector General Todd Zinser warned Senate and House appropriators this week, “To achieve cost savings, the Bureau is exploring new and innovative design alternatives based on evidence from its research and testing operations. However, the Bureau may be seeing signs of delays due to budget reductions and schedule slippage in its 2010 decennial census evaluation program and the 2020 decennial research and testing program.”

The problem, in other words, is that the Census Bureau already is positioned fiscally to fall behind, because Congress whacked about 13 percent from its 2020 Census budget request for the current year, what with sequestration and across-the-board cuts. The bureau will need its full FY2014 request of $244.8 million for 2020 Census planning just to stay on top of things.

So here we are, once again, facing an uphill battle for a reasonable investment in two of the nation’s premier statistical programs, both of which return far more to a democracy and informed decision-making than they will ever cost. Time to buckle down, census stakeholders, and fight the good (if often unrecognized) fight!

Sequestration Cuts’ Impact on Statistical Agencies

Steve PiersonThis blog post is provided by Steve Pierson of the American Statistical Association. Steve found three letters from statistical agencies that indicate the impact of the so-called sequestration cuts on these agencies.

In response to a request from Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (MD-D), federal agencies have sent letters to Mikulski on how sequestration would affect them. The letters are posted on the Senate Appropriations Commitee website and contain sequestration impacts for the Census Bureau, BLS and NASS. The other agency letters do not go to a level of detail to include the impacts on other federal statistical agencies (BEA, BJS, BTS, EIA. ERS, NCES, NCHS, NCSES, IRS SOI, SSA ORES).

In the letter from the Commerce Department, the following impacts for the Census Bureau are listed:

Sequestration would have to cut a total of $46 million from the Department’s Census Bureau. The Census Bureau will be forced to significantly cut contract dollars and not fill hundreds of vacancies, pushing back research and testing for the 2020 Decennial Census as well as seriously delaying the release of critical economic and demographic data needed for this calendar year.

The last benchmark of economic statistics supporting America’s assessment of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other key economic indicators was taken in 2007, prior to the recession. If the sequestration cuts move forward, the Census Bureau will be ready to make major departures from past operational designs that are intended to save money without diminishing quality. The Census Bureau has committed to executing a Census that would cost less per household in real dollars. Cuts now are virtually guaranteed to force the Census Bureau to ask for larger investments later, putting at risk that goal of achieving more significant forced to impose a six-month delay in releasing vital statistics for these indicators, putting at risk our ability to take accurate stock of current economic conditions and well-being and potentially impacting policy making and economic decisions in the private sector.

Furthermore, delays in developmental work for the 2020 Decennial Census will increase the risk that the Census Bureau will not be ready to make major departures from past operational designs that are intended to save money without diminishing quality. The Census Bureau has committed to executing a Census that would cost less per household in real dollars. Cuts now are virtually guaranteed to force the Census Bureau to ask for larger investments later, putting at risk that goal of achieving more significant savings.

In the letter from the Department of Agriculture, the section on the National Agricultural Statistical Service states that sequestration would stop FY13 scheduled activities for the Census of Agriculture including data processing. The letter goes on to say that data will be incomplete and not statistically sound for publication, which will “negatively affect decisions made by farmers, business and governments and ultimately will bring volatility to food markets and impact prices consumers pay.”

The Department of Labor letter states, “With millions in reductions, BLS would have to eliminate or reduce some of its programs.”

Presumably what is presented above for these three agency is paraphrased from much more substantive documents presented by Census, BLS and NASS to their respective departments.

Given the impacts of sequestration to the federal statistical agencies (and NSF and NIH), the ASA continues to urge its members to head the call late last year of 2012 President Bob Rodriguez: ASA President Asks ASA Members to Help Avoid Steep Cuts to NSF, NIH, and Federal Statistical Agencies.

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