Sponsors (2)
The bill strengthens individual choice and clarity by making ACS participation explicitly voluntary and removing penalties for nonresponse, but that benefit comes with a meaningful risk of lower response rates that could degrade data quality and harm funding allocation, planning, and local decision‑making.
Households (taxpayers and recipients of ACS forms) can decline individual American Community Survey questions without risk of federal fines or criminal penalties, protecting respondents' civil liberties.
ACS forms will explicitly state that participation is voluntary, improving informed consent and clarity for respondents completing census materials.
Privacy‑concerned groups (including immigrants and racial/ethnic minorities) may have greater trust in the Census Bureau when voluntariness is emphasized, which could modestly improve long‑term cooperation on optional items.
Lower ACS participation could weaken the statistical reliability of estimates that federal and local governments use for planning and policy, reducing the accuracy of data that state and local officials, schools, and program planners rely on.
Weaker ACS response rates could impair the formulas and estimates used to allocate federal funding and services, potentially reducing resources for low‑income communities, rural areas, and certain public programs.
Reduced reliability of ACS demographic and economic estimates could hamper business planning and local infrastructure decisions that depend on detailed community data.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced July 29, 2025 by W. Greg Steube · Last progress July 29, 2025
Removes the threat of penalty for refusing to answer the American Community Survey (ACS) and requires that the ACS (or any successor survey) include a clear statement that participation is voluntary. The bill changes Title 13 of the U.S. Code to exempt ACS nonresponse from the usual penalty authority and to add a required voluntary-participation notice on the survey form. The change directly affects people who receive and may choose not to answer ACS questions, and could affect data users (states, localities, researchers, businesses) because response patterns and data quality may change.