The Office of the Chief Statistician of the United States took a key step forward in its formal process to revise OMB’s statistical standards for collecting and reporting race and ethnicity data across Federal agencies by releasing a set of initial proposals in a Federal Register Notice. These are initial proposals developed by an Interagency Technical Working Group – they are not the final recommendations from the Working Group to OMB, and they do not represent the positions of OMB or the agencies participating on the Working Group.
Input from stakeholders and the public will be critical in guiding the Working Group as it continues to refine and finalize its recommendations. We encourage everyone to provide your thoughts and reactions to these proposals, including how you believe they may affect different communities, by April 12 at Regulations.gov, where you can submit comments starting tomorrow by searching for “OMB-2023-0001.” You can provide as little or as much feedback as you’d like for the Federal Register Notice (e.g., just addressing one question posed or responding to all aspects), and we welcome comments on any aspect of Directive No. 15 even if the topic wasn’t explicitly included in the FRN.
PAA and APC will be submitting comments as organizations, but individuals are encouraged to do the same.
The Working Group also has a new public website at: spd15revision.gov. Here you can learn more about Directive No. 15, the Working Group, the initial revision proposals, and how the public can get involved. The Office of the Chief Statistician is committed to a full, transparent revision process, guided by input from the American people. Your participation in this process will play a critical role in helping us improve the way Federal agencies safely and accurately collect and use information on the race and ethnicity of our diverse America. This is vital to ensure our programs and policies are effective across the Federal government—and we look forward to sharing additional updates in the months ahead. Our office remains dedicated to the goal of completing these important revisions by the Summer of 2024.