Since October 1, Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 has been operating on a series of continuing resolutions while leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate have been debating details of the 12 appropriations bills that fund all federal agencies. Almost three months later, and two days before Christmas, both chambers of Congress passed and sent to President Biden a 4,126-page FY 2023 omnibus appropriations bill. The measure was accompanied by a one-week continuing resolution (CR) to ensure the federal government would not shut down, even briefly, while the bill was being prepared for President Biden’s signature. President Biden signed the final FY 2023 bill into law on December 29, 2022.

Since the beginning of the year, the Population Association of America (PAA) and Association of Population Centers (APC) have been working independently and as members of coalitions, such as the Consortium of Social Science Associations, The Census Project, Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research, and Friends of National Center for Health Statistics, to urge Congress to support robust funding levels for federal agencies that directly and indirectly support the population sciences. The below table summarizes the final funding totals for key federal agencies important to the PAA and APC.

The final funding bill was accompanied by a series of reports which contained provisions clarifying congressional priorities and intent for federal agencies to follow in the remaining months of FY 2023. These provisions included language:

  • Expressing an expectation that the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) will be “physically located away from the NIH campus.” The bill provides $1.5 billion for ARPA-H in FY 2023—a $500 million increase over the agency’s FY 2022 funding level.
  • Increasing funding for trans-NIH research on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias by $226 million and requiring the National Institute on Aging, working with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “to enter into an agreement with NASEM [National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine] within 60 days of enactment of this Act to identify research priorities for preventing and treating AD/ADRD.”
  • Encouraging NIH “to support and develop long-term studies of healthy individuals that seek to identify structural drivers of health inequities. These may complement ongoing longitudinal studies of aging-such as the Health and Retirement Study, the National Health and Aging Trends Study, and others-to guide efforts to maximize health and enhance quality of life at older ages.”
  • Encouraging the Census Bureau to consult with data users “on disclosure avoidance methods under consideration for all data products and programs” and to provide a report to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on plans for implementing updated race and ethnicity questions on surveys, including the American Community Survey and the 2030 Decennial Census, and whether the agency believes that additional testing is necessary.

The 118th Congress convenes on January 3, 2023. Congress will begin deliberating the FY 2024 appropriations bills after President Biden submits his proposed budget in February 2023.

 

Agency FY 2022 FY 2023   Percentage Difference
AHRQ $350.4M $373.5M +6.6%
BLS $688M $698M +1.5%
Census Bureau $1.35B $1.48B +9.7%
IES $737M $807.6M +9.6%
NCHS $180.4M $187.4M +3.9%
NIH $44.9 B $47.5B +5.6%
NSF $8.8 B $9.8B +11.8%

 

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