April 2025 Census Project Update

Appropriations Update

Nearly 60 local, state and national organizations and companies joined a Census Project letter to Congressional appropriations leaders on April 3, 2025 “to support robust funding for the U.S. Census Bureau, specifically $2 billion as recommended by The Census Project” for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY 2026) and to urge Congress “to reverse the flat funding that the Bureau has received for the last two years.”

The letter focused on funding for the 2030 Census (and the 2026 field test), the American Community Survey (ACS), and other key census surveys and operations.

“While we appreciate the challenges that the current fiscal environment presents, this is exactly the wrong time in the long-expected ramp-up to the 2030 Census for Congress to constrain funding for the U.S. Census Bureau. To reiterate, the agency needs robust, reliable funding, especially at this point in the decennial census planning process, to proceed with critical activities that will help secure the success of the 2030 Census. In addition, it needs funding to pursue and accelerate research that has the potential to reduce respondent burden, improve the quality, timeliness, and accessibility of federal data overall and to benefit other statistical agencies.”

Appropriations Deadlines
While Congress awaits the President’s budget request (a “skinny” budget request with minimal details is expected from the White House as soon as May 2), the House and Senate are moving forward with the FY 2026 appropriations process.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, announced that members have until Friday, May 16, to submit programmatic funding and report language requests regarding agencies funded by the Commerce, Justice Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee.
In the U.S. Senate, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Patty Murray (D-WA), the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee respectively, announced that members have until May 22 to submit their CJS programmatic funding and report language requests.

If your organization wants to encourage individual members of the House and Senate to submit requests to the CJS Appropriations Subcommittees for funding the Census Bureau in FY 2026, please refer to the guidance that The Census Project provided earlier this year.

Public Testimony Opportunity in Support of Census

The House CJS Appropriations Subcommittee is accepting written public testimony until May 9.
The Senate CJS Subcommittee has not yet posted instructions for receiving public testimony.

Policy Update

Campaign launched to save the ACS
The Census Project announced the launch of “a campaign to rescue the country’s largest and most used official annual survey on people, places and the economy from persistent underinvestment at the very moment federal data have been most threatened.”

The Census Project announced a multi-faceted campaign this spring to urge Congress to protect Census Bureau data and make investments to secure taxpayer-financed data sources from future threats. The campaign includes: a letter to Congress; a more comprehensive white paper on the American Community Survey (ACS); and a social media campaign launching later this month to focus attention on the importance of the ACS especially to rural areas, veterans, and business development.

Inspector General Questions Validity of 2020 Census Post-Enumeration Survey (PES)
The final audit of the 2020 Census PES results related to overcounts and undercounts was released by the Commerce Department Inspector General (IG), questioning their validity and recommending improvements for 2030.

Census Bureau cancels government units survey
The Bureau announced the cancellation of the 2026 Government Units Survey: “The Census Bureau has recently determined that alternative data collection methods for identifying and classifying active governments for the Census of Governments are reliable. These methods include reviewing legislation and leveraging direct agreements with states. This will support data quality while alleviating respondent burden for local governments.”

Congressional Research Service looks at 2030 Census
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report: “The Decennial Census of Population and Housing: An Overview.” CRS is a research institute serving Congress, housed within the Library of Congress.

Requests for Public Comments

In April, The Census Project released 2 blogs highlighting requests for public comments that may be of interest to census stakeholders:

FRN on the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses (Comments are due by June 17, 2025)
FRN on Employment Discrimination Data Collection (Comments are due by May 30, 2025)

Census Bureau News Releases

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 Annual Integrated Economic Survey (AIES) began data collection March 14, when businesses should have received an email or letter in the mail inviting them to respond online. The deadline to respond is April 30.

The Bureau announced that data collection for the experimental Household Trends and Outlook Pulse Survey (HTOPS) is expanding to almost 30,000 households. This expanded sample size will allow for data to be released at a subnational level. Launched in January, HTOPS is a successor to the Household Pulse Survey (HPS).

Census Bureau Data Releases

The U.S. Census Bureau released new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) on April 24 and April 10, a survey that measures business conditions and projections on an ongoing basis. The BTOS includes data for multiunit/multilocation businesses. BTOS will continue to collect data complementary to key items found on other economic surveys, such as revenues, employees, hours, and inventories.

The Bureau released new Business Formation Statistics (BFS) for March 2025. The BFS provide timely and high frequency information on new business applications and formations in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau also released Monthly Puerto Rico Business Applications. This experimental data product features four monthly business applications series for Puerto Rico and uses the same methodology for business applications as the existing monthly BFS.

The Bureau released a downloadable file containing estimates of the nation’s resident population by sex and single year of age as of July 1, 2024.

The Bureau released new Establishment and Firm Size Statistics data tables from the 2022 Economic Census.

In the 2024 presidential election, 73.6% (or 174 million people) of the citizen voting-age population was registered to vote and 65.3% (or 154 million people) voted according to new voting and registration tables released by the U.S. Census Bureau. These data come from the 2024 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplement for the November 2024 presidential election, which surveyed the civilian noninstitutionalized population in the United States.

The U.S. Census Bureau released new tables and files containing detailed data from its 2024 Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections (STC). It provides information on different taxes imposed and collected by state governments and the District of Columbia. These data cover five broad tax categories and up to 25 tax subcategories.