In a letter dated 8^th September, the organisations warned that section 605 of the Fiscal Year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill could see the US census and American Community Survey (ACS) “counting barely a third of the country” and having adverse economic impacts across the country.

Section 605 of the bill states that “none of the funds in this act may be used to enforce involuntary compliance, or to inquire more than twice for voluntary compliance with any survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census”.

The letter claims that the provisions in section 605 “would prohibit enforcement of the mandatory response requirement on the decennial headcount and the ACS”, and in addition would also “severely constrict the ability to conduct basic contact and non-response follow-up operations across all Census Bureau surveys”.

The changes would also “have an especially devastating impact on the decennial census, which historically must send substantially more than just two invitations to just secure self-response”, according to the letter.

According to data from the Census Quality Reinforcement Task Force, the 2020 US census had counted only 28% of US households after the first two contacts, and no state had achieved 35% coverage.

The letter therefore warns that by potentially cutting off inquiries after that point, including non-response follow up operations, would leave as much as two-thirds of the US uncounted in the 2030 census, as well as undermining the ACS.

Instead, the letter calls for congress to “secure reliable data through increasing response rates, not decreasing them”, and warned that many businesses use census data to promote economic development, identify potential customers, understand audiences and create jobs.

The letter therefore asks congress to reject section 605 as the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill advances through the house.

The House Appropriations Committee approved the legislation with a vote of 34 to 28. There is no current date for the bill to go before the House of Representatives.