[This update expands the 8/14/26 item with additional resources and is reorganized for clarity.]

Census Bureau

[Note: The Census and Commerce news items are related, although the Commerce Department changes likely have broader impact.]

Understanding the New Disclosure Avoidance Policy: What It Means for Data, Confidentiality and You

Census Bureau director's blog (Aug 17)

Population Reference Bureau Associate VP Mark Mather comments on the PRB Federal Data Users Forum: "...[the order] bans noise infusion and designates coarsening as the preferred disclosure avoidance method. 

• 2030 Census: The CB plans to release a demonstration data product in mid-2027 for public feedback, which will inform census testing and 2030 Census design decisions.
• ACS: The CB is conducting research into how these methods will be used and expects a gradual transition, completed by 2029. Already-published products, including the 2024 ACS, won't be affected.
• Other products: Demographic surveys that use noise infusion will undergo disclosure risk assessments. Most economic indicators rely on suppression and won't change, but the Quarterly Financial Report will return to suppression. The CB is exploring alternatives for County Business Patterns, and LEHD products will continue using noise infusion until state data-sharing agreements are updated."

See also the PRB Disclosure Avoidance Explorer (an interactive guide with hypothetical data)

A New Draft Rule for the Census Seeks Sweeping Changes to How Political Power Is Allocated

TPM (Aug 11)

"The Trump administration is planning to dramatically reshape the data the Census Bureau collects, setting the stage for an audacious effort to curtail crucial information used in voting rights complaints and revive a right-wing effort, pursued in Trump’s first term, to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count used to determine how many members of Congress represent each state in Congress."

Census Proposal Would Stop Counting Undocumented Immigrants—and Ignore Race and Sexual Orientation

Wired (Aug 8)

"The US Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau, is circulating a proposed rule that would cease the collection of demographic data on racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people and prevent undocumented immigrants from being counted in the 2030 census, according to documents viewed by WIRED."

See a previous DCSS news item on the Census, "Inside Trump’s Stealth Trick to Rig the Census—and Congress"

Commerce Department Order

Explaining Department Administrative Order “Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products” (DAO 216-26) and Its Impact on Critical Data

Ass'n of Public Data Users (Aug 18)

"On June 4, 2026 the Department of Commerce issued a new order “Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products” (DAO 216-26) that limits the types of privacy protection methods that the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) can use for their data products. This order upends processes developed over decades to foster transparency and public trust and creates a scenario in which there will either be less privacy for our personal information, or less usable public data, or both. Notably, the DAO has resulted in an indefinite delay in American Community Survey, is likely to result in changes to the availability of County Business Patterns data, and is serving  as a justification to remove some demographic information from the decennial census."

How Will Methodology Restrictions Affect Demographic and Economic Data?

dataindex.us (Aug 12)

"On June 4, 2026 the Department of Commerce issued a new order “Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products” (DAO 216-26) that limits the types of privacy protection methods that the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis can use for their data products.

"Data users noted early on that the order would likely affect data availability, and we are now beginning to learn the scope of that impact. For example, on August 4, 2026 the Census Bureau announced an indefinite delay in releasing data from the American Community Survey."

See a previous DCSS news item on the Commerce Dept policy, "Update on Commerce Department data confidentiality policy" (July 29)

From the Union of Concerned Scientists

The threat isn’t over: Tell Trump to keep his hands off science!

"When the best available science is replaced by political preferences, everyone pays the price. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has just proposed major changes in its procedures for awarding research grants. Essentially, the proposed changes—which are now open for public comment— would codify within NSF the damaging rules OMB proposes to make government-wide."

Read more and submit your personalized comment by August 24.

Read a more detailed analysis of the NSF proposal from UCS here: "Research at Risk: The Latest Proposal to Devastate the National Science Foundation"
(July 21)

Previous DCSS post, "NSF proposes new "Guidance on Financial Assistance" separate from OMB proposal" (Aug 2) 

As we covered in several DCSS news items, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) put forward a proposed rule in late May that would broaden and solidify its efforts to establish political oversight of federal grants. (See the July 12 DCSS news item, with links to previous items.) Hundreds of thousands of people responded to that proposal with comments.

However, on June 24, the National Science Foundation (NSF) submitted its own proposed rule that would potentially take effect independently of the OMB rule. This NSF proposal has apparently received less media attention, but it is open for comment until August 24.

Stand Up For Science Foundation, "Here is What You Should Know About NSF’s New Guidance on Financial Assistance"

"On June 24, 2026, less than one month after the Office of Management and Budget released its proposed revisions to the Uniform Guidance on federal financial assistance—the National Science Foundation updated its Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), now being rebranded or supplemented as the Guidance on Financial Assistance (GFA). The GFA is a direct outcome of OMB’s proposed rule and the contents should alarm all grantees but specifically higher education institutions that are NSF grant recipients.

"NSF is using this update to align its rule with the Trump Administration’s Executive Orders and the still-unfinalized OMB proposed rule on all federal grants and contracts (see page 6). The GFA draft is currently open for public comments, with a deadline of August 24, 2026. Stand Up for Science is alerting the scientific community and urging active engagement to push back against provisions that could harm research integrity, funding stability, and scientific independence."

Read the complete analysis online here and take action through the SUFS Action Center.

See the NSF notice on Regulations.gov and comment by August 24.

Related: "NSF Is Making Fewer Grants, Threatening the Future of Scientific Discovery" Association of American Universities (AAU, July 10) [Ed note: This URL is not rendering correctly on 8/16/26, but the content is still legible.] 

Related: "Trump Administration Rescinds Title VI Regulations for NSF and other Agencies" (COSSA, Aug 11) "On August 4, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released a notice of a new rule in the Federal Register to rescind portions of its Title VI regulations, effective immediately. ... sought to 'repeal or amend the implementing regulations for Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for all agencies to the extent they contemplate disparate-impact liability.' "

See other recent DCSS news items about NSF:

"New NSF policy would ban almost all collaborations with Chinese scientists" (July 12)

"Trump Administration Strips Disability Accommodations at NSF" (June 2)

"New Grant Disruptions at NSF" (May 28)

"Since the 2025 administration change, disappearing federal datasets have sparked widespread concern – and confusion.

"Today, dataindex.us published the Federal Data Terminations Tracker – the most policy-relevant, verified source of federal datasets terminated since January 2025. Having evolved from the crowdsourced Dearly Departed Datasets published in October 2025, the tracker combines community reporting with expert identification and review to provide a regularly updated record of terminations.

"The team identified dozens of federal datasets and hundreds of data elements that have been terminated – significantly fewer than other reports, but more tailored to informing effective public engagement and future data policies needed to run a modern society."

Federal Data Terminations Tracker
How Do We Track Terminations of Federal Data? by Chris Dick and Denice Ross (Aug 10)

Webinar: "Introducing the Federal Data Terminations Tracker" Aug 19, 2026 01:30 PM Eastern

NIH Director Bhattacharya kills more health disparities grants

Science (Aug 5)

"More evidence is emerging that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched a new wave of grant terminations. The first signs came last week, when Science learned that an ongoing research grant for a structural racism study by an Emory University team had been killed. NIH sources sharing information on background indicated it was the first of more planned terminations. Now, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya is ending two more grants, both for health disparities research at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt).

"A 4 August letter sent by Bhattacharya to Pitt’s research office informing it that a grant to social epidemiologist Tamara Dubowitz “will be terminated in full” confirms that more cancellations are coming. The letter explains that Bhattacharya’s priorities include focusing on “measurable health outcomes” and “solution-oriented approaches” in health disparities research. It adds, “As a result, NIH is adjusting its extramural research portfolio, which includes terminating grant awards, to prioritize agency resources towards the above-mentioned priorities.”

Education Department stops collecting some LGBTQ+ student data

K-12 Dive (July 31)

"The U.S. Department of Education is abandoning the collection of key civil rights data on the nation’s LGBTQ+ students, cutting out data and definitions related to the harassment, bullying and assaults of a student group that has been found to be more at-risk of such incidents. 

"The changes will be made to the Civil Rights Data Collection, a mandated survey of all public school districts that has been administered for almost six decades, for at least the 2025-26 school year. Changes to future years’ data collections are still forthcoming. 

"Changes to the 2025-26 survey questions — approved by the Office of Management and Budget in July — include eliminating schools’ reporting of how many students identify as nonbinary, how often they are victims of harassment and bullying, and whether school districts have policies prohibiting those incidents."

Read the complete article

2026 MidSouth Education Policy Workshop

"The second MidSouth Education Policy Workshop will bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to present and discuss empirical research on education policy and the economics of education. This workshop is jointly organized by faculty at Miami University (OH), University of Kentucky, University of Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University. 

"This workshop will be held in-person at the University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY) beginning the morning of Thursday, October 8th, and concluding in the afternoon on Friday, October 9th.  To facilitate engagement, the workshop will be held entirely in person, without an option for virtual participation.

"We are accepting submissions (abstracts) for two types of presentations:

• Working papers to be presented in full-length sessions (e.g., 15-20 minutes for presentation and discussion) 
• Works-in-progress to be presented in shorter flash talks (e.g., 10-15 minutes for presentation and discussion)

"Please submit a full paper draft or abstract (up to 500 words) for consideration by 9am (Eastern) on Friday, August 21, 2026. We regret that we are unable to provide financial support for conference-related travel."

Read more information and the complete call for papers online.

From the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA)

"As COSSA has been reporting, the Trump Administration has proposed eliminating the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate in FY 2027. Advocates have been working tirelessly over the last several months to demonstrate to Congress the importance of SBE and the critical contributions made by social and behavioral science research. In fact, nearly 3,000 letters have been sent to Congress in response to COSSA’s Action Alert issued earlier this spring, urging lawmakers to save SBE.
 
"Our work is not done. Too many Members of Congress remain unaware of this issue and need to be contacted immediately. Therefore, even if you have already sent a letter to your representatives in Congress, we ask that you promptly follow up with the new message."

Read more and take action at the COSSA Action Center

Inside Trump’s Stealth Trick to Rig the Census—and Congress

Catherine Rampell, The Bulwark, July 24, 2026 (requires subscription)

"A VAGUELY OMINOUS BUT LITTLE-NOTICED regulatory filing issued in late June could have a profound impact on business, immigrants, and the balance of power in our country.

"The filing was a notification that the Trump administration had drafted new rules governing the decennial census. The actual specifics of those new rules remain scant. But from conversations I’ve been having with people close to the process, it is widely expected that the administration will try to recategorize millions of immigrants (both unauthorized and legal) as not actually living here in the United States."

Counting on Administrative Records: What we know (and don’t) ahead of the 2030 Census

Diana Elliott, Population Reference Bureau, July 28, 2026

"With each decade, conducting the U.S. census becomes a more onerous task. One particularly enduring—and costly—challenge is accurately counting people who are very hard to count, including those who are transient, have complex living arrangements, and distrust the government.

"The U.S. Census Bureau routinely introduces innovations meant to address this challenge. For the first time ever, the 2020 Census allowed households to respond online. While this option helped with data collection and processing, it did little to change the universe of respondents; as it turns out, the people most likely to respond online are also more likely to respond no matter what.

"Administrative records—existing forms like tax records and beneficiary information used to fill in data gaps when households didn’t respond—proved more effective in 2020. While not perfect, this practice has improved the quality of data for the hardest-to-count populations, and it’s expected to see even more widespread use in 2030.

"With Census Day fast approaching, let’s break down what we know about how administrative records were used in 2020, what 2030 could look like, and why transparency around their planned usage is so important."

"The American Statistical Association today released 2026 Midyear Update: Resources and Leadership Supporting Federal Statistics, the first in a new series of topical updates supplementing its ongoing assessment of the health of federal statistics. The update focuses on staffing, budgets and leadership-the core resources agencies need to fulfill their missions-and finds that agencies continue to operate with substantially fewer staff, reduced purchasing power and significant leadership gaps.

"Federal statistics-produced by agencies including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, and the National Center for Health Statistics-inform decisions by congress, businesses, researchers and households on matters ranging from inflation and employment to public health and education.

"The statistical agencies have shown remarkable resilience over the past 18 months, continuing to produce the data the nation relies on," said ASA Executive Director Ron Wasserstein. "At the same time, the cumulative loss of staff and leadership raises serious questions about the agencies' long-term capacity to meet their missions."

"The update documents the following trends:

• Staffing losses: All 13 federal statistical agencies have experienced staffing reductions since January 2025. Six agencies have lost at least one-third of their workforce and two have lost more than two-thirds. While hiring has resumed at many agencies, it's only for a handful of positions at most and, for the others, recruitment has barely begun to offset earlier losses.
• Widespread leadership vacancies: As of July 28, 2026, only 6 of the 13 agencies are headed by permanent, non-acting leaders.
• Eroding purchasing power: Most agencies received FY26 appropriations close to FY25 levels, but after accounting for inflation, purchasing power continued to decline. Eight agencies have lost at least 18% of their purchasing power since FY09.
• Proposed further cuts: The administration's FY27 budget request again proposes substantial reductions for most statistical agencies, with funding for 2030 Census preparations as the principal exception.
• Significant agency transitions: The National Agricultural Statistics Service lost nearly 40% of its staff since 2024 and is expected to lose more with a relocation for many positions from Washington, DC, to St. Louis, Missouri. The former Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics at the Social Security Administration has lost nearly 70% of its staff amid a restructuring that leaves its future role as a statistical agency uncertain.

"In addition to concluding that agencies are in a weakened and vulnerable position, the authors note that the pace of change has slowed in 2026 compared to the disruptions of 2025. Several agencies have resumed hiring, and, with the exception of the National Center for Education Statistics, most continue to regularly release their products. Some agencies have also introduced new statistical tools and products despite resource constraints.

"At the same time, the report finds that recent policy changes-including changes to civil service protections and new restrictions on privacy-protection methods used by the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis-are likely to have lasting implications for the agencies' operating environments."