Census Funding Bill Worries Observers

A Congressional subcommittee has approved the bill including 2025 funding for the U.S. Census Bureau, well below the Administration's requested $1.6bn and also some way short of the 2024 figure of $1.382bn. The bill also contains clauses potentially disastrous for the 2030 survey, according to critics.

The funding was part of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 bill approved by the House Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee on June 26th. The bill is due for consideration by the full House Appropriations Committee next week (July 9), and for for floor consideration two weeks later.

As last year, the bill includes a provision, Section 559, regarding funding covering persons 'unlawfully' in the country: 'None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to allow the United States Census Bureau to include aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States in rendering apportionment determinations in subsequent decennial censuses'.

According to The Census Project, a coalition of member organizations from private, public, non-profit and academic sectors who 'rely on objective data', another provision of concern is Section 621, which would prohibit enforcement of the mandatory response requirement on the decennial headcount and the American Community Survey (ACS), while also restricting the Bureau's ability to conduct non-response follow-up operations across all of its surveys. The Bureau said this would have 'a devastating impact on not only the 2030 decennial census, but also on the ACS, the Current Population Survey, and other major surveys that have multiple follow up contact strategies to ensure complete coverage of all geographies and population subgroups'.

Web sites: www.census.gov and www.thecensusproject.org .