Each month the Census Counts team compiles Census-related news from a wide swath of national and regional media outlets to keep data equity stakeholders informed and engaged.
As always, you can find earlier clips here.
December 15, 2025 Census Coalition Clips
National
Politico | News Immigrants Once Avoided Some Regions of America. That’s a Big Reason We’re So Divided.
It is said that America is a nation of immigrants, and for a truism, that’s pretty accurate. But it’s also true that the United States hasn’t always been a nation of immigrants — or at least not all at the same time and not in all the same places. These days, the debate over immigration still revolves around age-old issues — whether immigrants can assimilate, whether they must assimilate, whether the nation is augmented by newcomers or harmed by them. The reality is that from its founding the United States has been divided over how we define our nation and who can belong to it. And that divide has been geographic, built on massive differences in ideas about freedom, identity and belonging that go back to rivalries between this continent’s competing colonial projects that date back three and four centuries.
Colin Woodard | December 13, 2025
On January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, President Trump issued an executive order on “gender ideology” outlining how his administration would view sex and gender and incorporate these concepts into government. This executive order has had widespread implications across government and for federal grantees. One area that has been impacted is the federal government’s data collection efforts. This includes changes to questions about sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in multiple federal surveys, and retreating from plans to incorporate SOGI questions in surveys of the U.S. population by the Census Bureau. While data collection on both sexual orientation and gender has been scaled back or modified, measures relating to gender identity have been more specifically targeted for deletion.
Lindsey Dawson and Juliette Cubanski | December 11, 2025
AP News | News Scores of government statisticians are gone, leaving data at risk, report says
The ranks of U.S. government statisticians have been gutted in the past year due to layoffs and buyouts. That along with diminished funding and attacks on their independence have put at risk the data used to make informed decisions about everything from the nation’s economy to its demographics, according to a new report from outside experts released Wednesday. One agency lost 95% of its staff, while others dropped by about quarter to more than a third, due to government downsizing this year during President Donald Trump’s first months in office, according to the report released by the American Statistical Association.
Mike Schneider | December 10, 2025
The Center Square | News Rep. Hamadeh proposes dual-citizenship question for census
U.S. Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Arizona, introduced a bill that would add a dual citizenship question to the U.S. Census. The Arizona congressman told The Center Square that the Make Allegiances Clear Again Act, which he introduced last week, is “a long overdue reform of our nation’s census system.”
“You cannot fix a breach in national security if you refuse to look at it. The MACA Act ends what seems to be our willful ignorance and finally treats sovereignty as a serious question,” Hamadeh said, answering The Center Square’s questions by email. “Once we know the full scope of the problem, we can close loopholes that allow malign foreign actors to influence our domestic policy.”
Zachery Schmidt | December 11, 2025
States
Massachusetts
CommonWealth Beacon | News Massachusetts lagging on implementation of data equity law
For Black, Indigenous, and communities of color, as well as other marginalized groups, data can drive greater visibility of residents’ needs—or perpetuate our historic invisibility. Thanks to the longstanding advocacy of community organizations, researchers, state Rep. Tackey Chan and the House Asian Caucus, Massachusetts passed the most expansive data equity policy in the nation, embedding this language into the 2024 budget, which Governor Maura Healey signed into law in August 2023. These provisions require all state agencies that already collect race and ethnicity information to further disaggregate it by every major Asian, Pacific Islander, Black and African American, Latino, and white or Caucasian subgroup. The data equity law represents a significant milestone in not only overcoming harmful racial biases in data, but also opening the door for greater intentionality and effectiveness in delivering state programs.
Jaya Savita and Danielle Kim | December 9, 2025
New York
JD Supra | News New York City to Mandate Race and Sex Pay Data Reporting
The New York City Council voted to override Mayor Eric Adams’ veto of a new law that will require private employers to report pay data by race, ethnicity, and sex. This move positions New York City at the forefront of pay transparency and equity initiatives, aligning with broader national trends and state regulatory efforts. On December 4th, 2025, the Council overturned the Mayor’s veto related to sections 982-A and 984-A which will require covered employers to submit employee pay data (982-A) and a city-agency developed pay equity study based on the submitted employer data.
Thomas Carnahan, Ph.D. | December 10, 2025
North Carolina
ABC News 13 | News Congressman Edwards’ bill aims to redefine census count for congressional districts
In an ongoing effort to hold elected leaders accountable, News 13 spoke with Congressman Chuck Edwards about his bill titled the Equal Representation Act. The bill is moving toward a full House vote, and it could change the way the census counts the population when deciding congressional districts, only counting U.S. citizens. “There is court precedent over time that identifies or defines exactly what the word “person” is. In this context, we choose to use that it’s a U.S. citizen that is eligible to vote here that would be counted in the apportionment,” Edwards said.
News 13 asked Edwards if the underlying goal is to disadvantage states that have higher immigrant populations.
Charles Perez | December 11, 2025
Blog Posts and Reports
U.S. Census Bureau | Press Release Business Formation Statistics Monthly Data Release
The U.S. Census Bureau today released new Business Formation Statistics (BFS) for September, October, November 2025. The BFS provide timely and high frequency information on new business applications and formations in the United States and Puerto Rico. The BFS are a standard data product of the Census Bureau, developed in research collaboration with economists affiliated with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the University of Maryland, and the University of Notre Dame.
Julie Iriondo | December 12, 2025
U.S. Census Bureau | Press Release Census Bureau Releases International Population Estimates and Projections
The U.S. Census Bureau today released new population estimates, projections and other demographic data up to the year 2100 for 21 countries and areas in the International Database (IDB). New data and analyses were used to refine population estimates and projections for Australia, Bangladesh, Barbados, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, El Salvador, Eswatini, Guatemala, Iran, Jamaica, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Philippines, Rwanda, Togo, Tunisia, the United States, and Zambia. The release also includes data for 13,671 subnational areas similar to U.S. states, counties and townships around the world, along with enhanced mapping features.
Kristina Barrett | December 11, 2025
U.S. Census Bureau | Blog State Governments Parlay Sports Betting Into Tax Windfall
Sports betting tax revenues have skyrocketed in recent years as more states got in on the action. The national total of state sales tax revenue from sports betting soared 382%, from $190 million in the third quarter of 2021 (when data collection began) to $917 million in the second quarter of 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Summary of State and Local Tax Revenue (QTAX). Sports betting became possible in May 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. Since then, a majority of states have legalized some form of sports betting; including online, mobile, retail sports betting and pari-mutuels (such as wagers made on horse-racing). Sports betting is a growing industry, and the tax revenue it generates helps fund public schools, roads, highways, law enforcement and gambling addiction treatment.
Rob Simon | December 10, 2025
GAO | Report GAOverview: Census Bureau Undertakes Data Collection Modernization
After the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau initiated four enterprise-wide programs to modernize and consolidate the IT systems that collect, process, and disseminate data for its surveys. This report focuses on the data collection modernization program, known as Data Ingest and Collection for the Enterprise.
GAO | December 11, 2025
December 8, 2025 Census Coalition Clips
National
NPR | News Trump official signals potential rollback of changes to census racial categories
A Trump administration official on Friday signaled a potential rollback of the racial and ethnic categories approved for the 2030 census and other future federal government forms. Supporters of those categories fear that any last-minute modifications to the U.S. government’s standards for data about race and ethnicity could hurt the accuracy of census data and other future statistics used for redrawing voting districts, enforcing civil rights protections and guiding policymaking. Those standards were last revised in 2024 during the Biden administration, after Census Bureau research and public discussion.
Hansi Lo Wang | December 5, 2025
Cato Institute | News Immigrant Share Grows More Slowly Than Any Decade Since the 1970s
New US Census Bureau statistics show that, despite a significant increase in immigration during President Biden’s term in office, the immigrant share of the US population grew more slowly over the past decade than during any decade since the 1970s. By 2024, the immigrant population total—about 50 million—had only just returned to the trend seen before the first Trump administration. In 2024, the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) estimated that there were 50.2 million immigrants, legal and illegal, in the United States. In 2024, the share of the US population who were immigrants, legal or illegal, was 14.8 percent, meaning that 85.2 percent were natural-born citizens.
David J. Bier | December 4, 2025
Reuters | News US Census Bureau says implementing strategies to bring economic data releases back on track
The U.S. Census Bureau said on Wednesday it was adopting several strategies, including shortening the window for Principal Federal Economic Indicators collection, to get economic data back to their original release schedule “as quickly as possible.” “For our PFEIs to return to their original release schedules, processing stages must be accelerated and condensed where possible while still adhering to established quality standards,” the Census Bureau said in a statement posted on its website. A record 43-day shutdown of the government has delayed economic releases. The October employment and consumer price reports have been canceled because the shutdown prevented the collection of data, which could not be done retroactively.
Reuters | December 3, 2025
States
Florida
Florida Politics | News Florida Chamber 2020 census study says state missed $11.4B in federal funding due to miscount
A new analysis by the Florida Chamber Foundation says hundreds of thousands of Florida residents were not counted during the federal census five years ago, resulting in the state missing out on billions of dollars in federal funding. The Florida Chamber Foundation Undercount Study concluded that the U.S. Census conducted in 2020 missed approximately 750,000 residents in the state, costing Florida $11.4 billion. The study provided breakdowns for estimated lost federal funding for each of Florida’s 63 counties.
Drew Dixon | December 3, 2025
Minnesota
Time | News Protesters Condemn Trump’s Targeting of Minnesota’s Somali Community: ‘This Is Our Country, Not His’
Protesters gathered outside the Signature Aviation base near the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport on Wednesday to decry President Donald Trump’s targeting of Minnesota’s Somali community. Supported by the union groups Minnesota 50501, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and UNITE HERE, protesters held signs that read “Stop deporting our neighbors” and “No ICE, No troops, No Kings.” Others directly called out the President, brandishing placards with statements such as “Dump Trump” and “This is our country, not his.”
Olivia-Anne Cleary | December 4, 2025
CBS News | News Somali Americans in Minnesota share their stories of immigration, hope
In the heart of Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, DFL lawmakers condemned attacks on the Somali community while addressing the growing fear and arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, data shows over 107,000 people identified as Somali across the state. A majority of them live in the Twin Cities. Many Somali families fled civil war, seeking an opportunity and a brighter future for their children.
Ubah Ali | December 4, 2025
New York
Empire Center | News New York’s Population Is Struggling to Recover from Covid-19
Most parts of New York remain less populated in 2024 than they were in 2020 as the state struggled to recover from Covid-19, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data. This was especially true for New York City, the pandemic’s early epicenter. Although the city’s population climbed in 2023 and 2024, it had gained back only about one-third of what it lost in 2021 and 2022 – and remained down by 262,000 residents or 3 percent since the start of the decade.
Bill Hammond | December 3, 2025
Blog Posts and Reports
U.S. Census Bureau | Press Release Census Bureau Releases New Estimates on America’s Families and Living Arrangements
Newly released estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s historical America’s Families and Living Arrangements tables show that fewer than half (47%) of U.S. households in 2025 were married couples — a significant shift from 50 years earlier, when nearly two-thirds (66%) were. Among married-couple households, the share with their own children declined over the past half-century. In 1975, more than half (54%) of married-couple households included their own children under age 18; by 2025, that share had declined to about 37%.
Public Information Office | December 2, 2025
U.S. Census Bureau | Blog U.S. Workforce is Aging, Especially in Some Firms
Workers ages 55 or older have been the fastest-growing age group in the labor force for more than two decades and made up 24% of the U.S. workforce in 2022, up from 10% in 1994. But not every workplace reflects this aging workforce. New U.S. Census Bureau research shows that firms in some industries and some states had a much greater concentration of older workers than others. In 2006, 45 million workers were employed by firms with less than 10% older workers. But as the workforce aged, this number fell to around 32 million in 2022.
Martha Stinson and Sean Wang | December 2, 2025
December 1, 2025 Census Coalition Clips
National
The Fulcrum | News When the Data Disappears, A Country Is Left in the Dark
In the middle of the most chaotic news cycle in years, the most dangerous rollback of all has happened quietly: the systematic disappearance of federal data. Not data “updates,” not bureaucratic housekeeping — but the removal of tools that local officials and ordinary Americans rely on to understand pollution, disease, violence, discrimination, and climate change itself. The public’s ability to see reality is being eliminated. Experts call this “data degradation,” but the stakes go far beyond missing spreadsheets and webcams. When the government hides the information people need to protect themselves, it’s a clear sign of narrative control. Data that contradict the administration’s story disappear, and “truth” becomes whatever aligns with political interests rather than evidence.
Brent Mckenzie | November 30, 2025
Axios | News Fewer people are moving — and it may be reshaping America
America saw fewer moves than ever in 2024, according to an analysis of census data published this fall. The big picture: Roughly 1 in 9 people (11%) changed residences last year — a record low in data going back to 1948. That’s down from around 14% a decade ago and 20% in the 1960s, per the analysis by rental listing site Point2Homes. Why it matters: A sharp nationwide “decline in geographic mobility is the single most important social change of the past half century,” The Atlantic’s Yoni Appelbaum wrote earlier this year.
Sami Sparber | November 30, 2025
Washington Times | News House GOP eyes bill to add citizenship question to census
House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer said Friday that his committee will take up a bill to add a citizenship question to the 2030 census. The legislation would also limit the population count used for doling out seats in the U.S. House only to citizens. Mr. Comer said his committee will debate the legislation Tuesday, as part of a broader package of bills altering government operations. Other measures include new reporting on union members doing union business on taxpayers’ dime, sunsetting spending that isn’t officially authorized by Congress and expanding the use of a mandatory probationary period for new federal hires.
Stephen Dinan | November 28, 2025
The Armenian Weekly | News What is our race? Does it even matter?
Armenians are one of the few ethnic groups whose racial categorization is entirely up for debate. Are we Eastern European or West Asian? Perhaps we are just Caucasian? But are we Middle Eastern? Are Middle Easterners even White? Why does any of this matter? No one has a definitive answer. Armenia is nestled in the cleft between Europe and Asia, surrounded by nations and peoples of varying ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. It has centuries of history under vastly different empires, from the Persian to the Ottoman, and more recently, the Soviet Union. But now, our struggle with racial ambiguity may finally have a definitive answer. In early October, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 91 (AB 91), titled the MENA Inclusion Act.
Maria Movsesyan | November 25, 2025
The Washington Post | News In these U.S. groups, deaths now exceed births. What’s happening?
Unlike much of Europe and East Asia, America hasn’t reached the point at which we have more people dying than we do being born. At least not in the long run. We briefly blew past that point in a few winter months at the height of the covid-19 pandemic, according to our analysis of birth- and death-certificate data collected by the National Vital Statistics System. That’s mostly past. Americans now die at rates similar to the trends we followed before the outbreak. But those trends weren’t all positive: We’re not far from the point where, each winter, deaths will regularly edge out births once more.AI Icon
Andrew Van Dam | November 24, 2025
States
Indiana
Chicago Tribune | News Indiana legislature to meet in December to take up mid-census redistricting
The Indiana legislature plans to reconvene in early December to vote on mid-census redistricting, leaders for both legislative chambers said Tuesday, marking a reversal from last week. Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, said in a statement Tuesday that House Republicans will gavel in on Dec. 1, reconvening the 2026 regular session, to consider all legislative business “including redrawing the state’s congressional map.” Indiana was last redistricted in 2021, which left Congressional Republicans with seven seats to the Democrats’ two seats. The Democratic seats are Northwest Indiana’s First District, held by U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan of Highland, and the Seventh District, held by U.S. Rep. André Carson of Indianapolis, which encompasses most of Indianapolis and Marion County.
Alexandra Kukulka | November 25, 2025
