Census Hits Pause On Revising Disability Questions

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 because of concerns that planned updates could lead to serious undercounts.

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 will consider the full breadth of what is the best option to measure this issue in the ACS. Nothing will change without the continued commitment and input of the disability community,” Santos said in a recent post.

The commitment comes after Census officials met with more than 100 disability community stakeholders earlier this fall in an attempt to address the fallout after the agency proposed sweeping changes to its disability questions on last year.

Under the plan, census officials wanted to reorder and rephrase the set of six disability questions on the American Community Survey while adding a new question on psychosocial and cognitive disability and speech problems. Additionally, people would be asked to rate the level of difficulty they have with various functions rather than simply answering with “yes” or “no.” Advocates noted that for a person to be considered disabled under the proposal, a person would have to answer at least one question with “great difficulty” or “not able to do so 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 taken into account when determining federal funding allocations and decisions about many government programs.

In response to the proposal, the Census Bureau received more than 12,000 comments, many of which were critical, and officials backtracked. Now, after meeting with stakeholders in the disability community, they are extending that pause.

Scott D. Landes, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University who participated in the meeting, said he remains concerned that census officials have not ruled out returning to the proposed methodology, which he said “severely underestimates” the population. with disabilities.

“I am concerned that the continued use of (proposed) questions to measure disability in US federal surveys, such as the (National Health Interview Survey), and the willingness to consider switching to these questions in the ACS will put jeopardize the fairness of disability data,” Landes said. .

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