Experts: Census needs funding to repair its data ‘backbone’

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press

A U.S. Census Bureau survey that is the premier source of yearly information about the nation’s population and workforce needs more funding — lots of it, according to a report released Tuesday by a coalition of experts. Increasing funding by tens of millions of dollars for the annual American Community Survey would enable it to include more respondents, be more nimble in adding or removing timely questions and speed up the release of results. The money could also help fix problems with the 2020 results. Funding for the so-called “backbone” of the U.S. Census has been around $226 million a year.