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While IA advocates for a better-resourced 2030 Census and American Community Survey (ACS), the federal government shutdown and continued funding battles have left a lot in limbo.

“The 2020 Census demonstrated that shortchanging funding for research and planning in the middle of the decade is a fool’s errand, leading to the elimination of important tests and rehearsals that might have improved the accuracy of final data from rural areas, American Indian reservations, and small populations,” commented Howard Fienberg, Senior VP Advocacy for the Insights Association, the leading nonprofit association representing the insights, market research and analytics industry. “Repeating those mistakes in the 2030 Census cycle would be the height of stupidity.”

Data from the decennial census and the American Community Survey (ACS) provide the statistical backbone of the insights industry and our ability to produce statistically-representative data.

The Census Bureau was flat funded in Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25), which was a better outcome than the cuts Congress had planned.

For FY26, IA joined with our coalition allies in seeking $2 billion for the Bureau. The Trump Administration requested, and the House Appropriations Committee concurred in, $1.6765 billion for the Bureau in FY26 ($294 million above the FY25-enacted level). However, the Senate Appropriations Committee offered $1.52 billion for the Census Bureau in their version of the FY26 CJS Appropriations bill (nearly $138 million more than FY25, but more than $156 million shy of the White House’s request).

Further complicating matters:

1. Neither side of Congress has passed their FY26 CJS funding bills on their respective floors;
2. While the House of Representatives offered more money in their committee-approved bill, it included a provision (Sec. 605) that “would crater response rates to all Census Bureau surveys and result in the decennial” and ACS “counting barely a third of the country,” according to the letter we led from a dozen business groups; and
3. President Donald Trump made a confusing call for a “new census” this summer, to which IA responded by urging the White House to help fully fund the decennial.

With the federal government shut down at the start of the new fiscal year on October 1, 2025, most census functions have been on hiatus, except for some preparations for the 2026 Census field test, which the Commerce Department planned to continue.

As noted by a coalition letter IA joined on June 25, 2025, we have been severely concerned “about the U.S. Census Bureau’s ability to conduct” the 2026 Census Test, which “will allow the Census Bureau to research and test new operations and outreach methods. The federal hiring freeze, coupled with delayed and uncertain funding for both the current and next fiscal years, could force the Census Bureau to curtail or cancel altogether the six field sites, as well as the nationally-representative sample, planned for the 2026 Census Test.” IA had urged in that letter for Congress to intervene “to ensure that the full complement of test activities can proceed as planned, to help make sure the 2030 Census counts all communities accurately.”

Even now, the Insights Association remains focused on next steps. IA joined with nearly 70 other groups on October 30, 2025 to call on Congress to at least meet the White House and House funding levels in a final FY26 CJS Appropriations bill, and to strike Sec. 605.

IA will continue to work Capitol Hill in support of the most accurate 2030 Census and ACS.