Sponsors (2)
The bill increases individual privacy and clarity by making the ACS explicitly voluntary, but it risks lower response rates that can degrade data quality, harming government funding formulas, local services, economic planning, and increasing costs to taxpayers.
Households (including immigrants and racial/ethnic minorities) will be explicitly told the American Community Survey is voluntary and can decline to answer without federal penalty, improving individual choice, privacy, informed consent, and potentially trust among sensitive populations.
State and local governments and planners will face weaker, less reliable population and housing statistics if ACS response rates fall, undermining data used to allocate federal funds and for local planning.
Hospitals, schools, and low-income communities risk receiving reduced or poorly targeted federal grant funding and services if ACS-derived funding formulas become less reliable.
Businesses and planners will face greater uncertainty and potential costs when using ACS-based estimates for market, workforce, and infrastructure planning, and the Census Bureau may need to spend more on alternative data collection or outreach—raising costs for taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Makes participation in the American Community Survey voluntary, removes penalties for nonresponse, and requires the survey to state participation is voluntary.
Introduced July 29, 2025 by W. Greg Steube · Last progress July 29, 2025
Makes participation in the American Community Survey (ACS) voluntary by removing the penalty provision that applied to people who refuse to answer ACS questions and requires the Census Bureau to include a clear statement on ACS (and any successor survey) materials that participation is voluntary. It changes Title 13 of the U.S. Code to treat the ACS differently from other mandatory census inquiries but does not include funding or implementation detail beyond those legal changes.