Amid cuts to funding and resources for federal data under the Trump administration’s efficiency drive, a white paper authored by The Census Project, an advocacy group comprised of census data users, specialists and local planners, said: “Events in Washington, D.C., to find efficiencies in government have put the ACS at even greater risk. Already, access to ACS data tables has been temporarily suspended several times.”

The ACS is a continuous survey providing demographic, socioeconomic and housing data for US communities down to the neighbourhood and census tract levels.  

The group has also written to Congress to urge representatives to support funding of $2bn for the Census Bureau in the 2026 fiscal year, reversing what it called the “flat funding” the agency has received in recent years.

The letter, dated 3^rd April, flagged the importance of the funding to the next US census in 2030 as well the ACS.  

“Years of underinvestment have degraded ACS data, precluded necessary increases in the survey’s sample size and shortchanged the Bureau’s ability to address steadily declining response rates, or revise content, to accelerate research to reduce respondent burden, and make other improvements that stakeholders have recommended for years,” the letter said.

The Census Project asked Congress to add $100 to $300m to the funding recommendation for the ACS in the 2026 fiscal year.

The Census Project said it had stepped up its campaigning efforts after the Administration disbanded three census advisory committees earlier this year. At that point, the group “decided the coalition’s normal efforts would not be sufficient to ensure vital data for the nation would survive,” according to a press release.

Signatories of the letter to Congress included the American Statistical Association, the Insights Association and the Population Association of America.

It 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,” the letter said, citing the need for “robust, reliable funding” for the agency as it plans for the decennial count. The Bureau also needs funding for research that could help to reduce respondent burden, improve the quality, timeliness, and accessibility of federal data and benefit other statistical agencies, signatories noted.

Census Project co-director Mary Jo Mitchell said: “In this moment of increasing threats to data taxpayers not only rely upon but paid for, we can’t be doing business as usual. The ACS is the backbone for these other surveys under threat at the Bureau. If it fails, they are all weakened and less reliable.”

Census Project co-director Howard Fienberg added: “We are making sure the new administration and their supporters on the Hill understand these data are essential infrastructure for constituencies they care most about, especially rural areas, the business community, veterans and others.”