A census taker visits a home. (U.S. Census Bureau)
The U.S. Census Bureau will not make any changes to the way it counts the number of Americans with disabilities for at least two years following concerns that planned updates could lead to a severe undercount.
Robert L. Santos, the agency’s director, said there will be no changes to the disability questions used in its American Community Survey in 2025 or 2026.
“Beyond that, we’ll consider the full breadth of what is the best fit for measuring this topic on the ACS. Nothing will change without continued engagement with and input from the disability community,” Santos said in a recent posting.
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The commitment comes after Census officials met with more than 100 disability community stakeholders earlier this fall in an attempt to address fallout after the agency proposed sweeping changes to its disability questions last year.
Under the plan, Census officials wanted to reorder and reword the series of six disability questions in the American Community Survey while adding a new question about psychosocial and cognitive disability and problems with speech. In addition, people would be asked to rate the level of difficulty they have with various functions rather than simply responding with “yes” or “no.” Advocates pointed out that in order to be counted as having a disability under the proposal, a person would need to respond to at least one question with “a lot of difficulty” or “cannot do at all.”
If implemented, advocates warned the change could lead to a 40% drop in the number of people considered to have disabilities. And that would have broad implications since Census data is factored when determining federal funding allocations and decisions about many government programs.
In response to the proposal, the Census Bureau received over 12,000 comments, many of which were critical, and officials backed off. Now, after meeting with stakeholders in the disability community, they’re extending that pause.
Scott D. Landes, an associated professor of sociology at Syracuse University who was involved in the meeting, said he remains worried that Census officials have not ruled out eventually reverting to the proposed methodology, which he says “severely underestimate” the disability population.
“I am concerned that the continued use of the (proposed) questions to measure disability in U.S. federal surveys such as the (National Health Interview Survey), and willingness to consider switching to these questions in the ACS imperils disability data justice,” Landes said.
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