#U.S. Census

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Annoyingly, this report wasn't aired until the end of the last day of the first comment period. But there will be a second comment period coming up "in the spring."

Keep your senses perked.

[smalltofedsblog]

Dollars And Demographics: How Census Data Shapes Federal Funding Distribution

338 federal assistance programs relied on census data to direct more than $2.1 trillion in funds to states and communities in FY 2020.

[jimluce]

Majority of 'White' Americans Identify as English, German, or Irish

New U.S. Census Data Reveals Detailed Ancestry Among ‘White’ Americans Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Census Bureau reports that for the first time ever, respondents to the 2020 Census who reported “White” as a race could write in more details such as Italian, Palestinian, or Cajun. Together, the English American (46.6 million), German American (45 million), and Irish American (38.6 million) alone…

[realityfragments]

We "Others"

‘Some Other Race’, or as I say, ‘Other’, is a growing demographic as I mentioned yesterday. Had I not been given as much resistance in discussion, I would have gone along thinking that A Colorful History The United States Constitution (Article I, Section 2) established representation in the U.S. House of Representatives was based on population determined by census. It’s a very interesting read…

[gwydionmisha]

If it's a concern, we could just stop being assholes to immigrants. Just saying.

[hansilw]

On Dec. 5, the Census Bureau's #2030Census Advisory Committee is set to meet to present tabled recommendations from its Oct. 17-18 meeting

[trendynewsnow]

Generation Z's Rent Burden: A Comparative Study with Millennials

Generation Z Faces Rent Challenges: A Comparative Analysis Earlier this year, we highlighted a significant trend: Generation Z is now at the forefront of rental demand, overtaking millennials, who are gradually shifting towards homeownership. Given the pressures of the post-pandemic housing market, one might assume that Zoomers are grappling with more financial strain than their predecessors did…

[wausaupilot]

Fiscal Facts: Housing permitting slows, adding to affordability concerns

The state’s largest housing market, metro Milwaukee, saw a decline the last three years in the pace of multi-family housing construction relative to 2017-2019, while single-family construction held flat.

As housing has become increasingly unaffordable in Wisconsin and nationally since 2021, our state has issued more permits for housing construction. But the pace has declined slightly over the last two years and still lags far behind the housing boom years of the early 2000s. Meanwhile, a growing share of new housing permits were for multi-family units, while the pace of single-family permitting…

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

(A Follow-Up to This Post [A report from NPR, 20 December 2023])

6 February, 2024 by Robert L. Santos, Director, U.S. Census Bureau

Excerpt:

Disability Content

In a Federal Register notice posted in October 2023, we proposed changing the ACS questions on disability to a set of questions based on the Washington Group Short Set (WG-SS) on functioning. That proposal would have aligned us with international standards from the United Nations and advances in measuring disability. The Census Bureau received more than 12,000 comments in response to the Federal Register notice outlining all of the proposed changes to the ACS. The comments can be found at regulations.gov. The majority of them expressed concerns with the proposed changes to the disability questions. 

Themes we saw in the comments included:

Desire for more comprehensive public engagement.

Concern that the existing and proposed questions do not measure more or all types of disabilities.

Concern regarding a break in the data series if the questions changed, including difficulties comparing data on disability pre-2025 with 2025 and beyond, and a gap in availability of 5-year data products featuring lower-level geography until 2030.

Requests for and questions about having multiple estimates that reflect the graded response categories in the WG-SS questions. The response categories include: no difficulty, some difficulty, a lot of difficulty and cannot do at all.

Concern that the proposed use of the international standard cutoff for disability that does not include people reporting “some difficulty,” would decrease the estimate of people living with disabilities.

A question change could potentially impact program funding and services.

Next Steps: More Feedback and Engagement

Before the Census Bureau submits the final proposal for the 2025 ACS content for OMB’s approval, it will offer another opportunity for the public to provide feedback. As mentioned above, in spring 2024, the Census Bureau will publish a 30-day Federal Register notice summarizing the proposed 2025 ACS content, which will not include any changes to the existing disability questions. The Census Bureau will then review the feedback and submit the final proposed content for OMB review and approval.  

The Census Bureau also wants to engage further with the public on the disability topic specifically. A significant theme in the Federal Register notice comments is a desire for more comprehensive engagement. In the spirit of a whole-of-government approach, the Census Bureau, NCHS, OMB and other federal partners are working together to make that happen.

Moreover, this spring, the Census Bureau, NCHS and OMB plan to convene a meeting with federal agency disability stakeholders, disability community representatives, data users, researchers and disability advocates. The purpose is to discuss data needs and data uses surrounding the topic of disability. More details on the meeting will be provided soon. 

Finally, I’d like to note we embrace continuous improvement. Going forward, the Census Bureau will recommend the ICSP-SACS consider revisions to the protocols to enhance collaboration with data users and other stakeholders at the beginning of, and during, the ACS content change process.

[end of excerpt]

Sigh... I was hoping for a more concrete date for the next comment period than "Spring," because I don't want to miss the deadline...

In the meantime, I'll be reading through the rest of the blog post for the reasoning behind the proposal to change how Disability stats are collected, so I can better formulate my response when the next public comment period comes up.

[shiroikabocha]

love that when we respond to Reese’s meows by meowing back at her, she takes it in stride. “Well, their accents are bad and they don’t really grasp the underlying grammar, but they’re trying.”

but when we meow at Iggy he gets straight-up OFFENDED

“you APPROPRIATE my LANGUAGE???? is my culture a JOKE to you??!!!?! BITE”

[cyanomys]

@wongataa Texas and Oklahoma are considered part of the Southern US, not the Midwest! At least via US census designations, anyway. I actually grew up in Southwestern Missouri which was sort of a hybrid between Southern culture and Midwestern culture. So I can definitely understand the confusion with where one end and the other begins, seeing as they really do blend together, and the groupings are, as with most others, artificial and incomplete.

[hansilw]

A controversial Census Bureau proposal could shrink a key estimated rate of disability in the U.S. by about 40%. Public comments on this potential change are due Tuesday, Dec. 19, but NPR has confirmed there will be another opportunity to give feedback in spring 2024. Public comments on these proposed changes to the disability questions on the American Community Survey can be emailed to acso.pra@census.gov. The bureau tells NPR they are set to be published on Regulations.gov before the next public comment period in the spring. The bureau says the proposed changes are part of a years-long effort to improve the quality of its disability data and standardize the statistics so they're comparable to other countries' numbers. But many critics of the bureau's proposals say the perspectives of disabled people in the U.S. have been missing in many of the discussions leading up to this point. The bureau tells NPR the main interagency committee for coming up with these disability question revisions did not add representatives from the Administration for Community Living and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services until this year. The bureau also tells NPR that the process for evaluating these proposed changes to the disability questions did not involve the Interagency Committee on Disability Research.

[batboyblog]

What Joe Biden has Done for LGBTQ+ People

I wanted to list out everything The Biden Administration has done for Queer people in the last 3 and a half years, but according to GLAAD it'd been 337 moves (and I noticed they missed a few things...) there was just no way to list every ground breaking first Queer person ever nominated to fill this or that job, every ally with a historic LGBT rights record nominated for a top job, every beautiful statement of support, every time he tried to get Congress to pass the Equality Act (support it!) So I've gone through and done my best to pick the ones I think were the most important, but everyone should check out the full list!

Day 1: Signs executive orders banning discrimination and ordering a full review of all federal agencies policies to better include and support LGBT people

Pete Buttigieg becomes the first openly gay person nominated and confirmed for a cabinet level post as Secretary of Transportation

Revokes Trump’s 2018 ban on transgender military personnel

Department of Housing and Urban Development implements LGBTQ protections in housing, becoming first federal agency to implement Pres. Biden’s executive order

First President to recognize and proclaim Trans Day of Visibility

Department of Justice Civil Rights Division issues an official memo that the Supreme Court's Bostock decision against LGBT workplace discrimination also applies to education through Title IX

HUD withdraws a Trump Administration proposed rule change, and reaffirms trans people's rights to seek shelters matching their gender identity

HHS announces the withdrawal of Trump Administration rules that allowed discrimination by healthcare organizations against LGBT people.

The State Department and later Homeland Security announce babies born to Queer couples overseas will be American citizens if one parent is American, in the past the child only qualified if they were genetically related to the American citizen parent.

The Justice Department files against a West Virginia law banning trans students from school athletics

Department of Veterans Affairs announces it will offer gender confirming surgery for transgender veterans. There are an estimated 134,000 transgender veterans in the U.S. and another 15,000 transgender people serving in the armed forces.

President Biden Signs a law making the Pulse Night Club a national memorial

The State Department creates an X gender marker for passports and other documents, allowing gender affirming identification for non-binary and intersex people for the first time.

The Census Bureau for the first time issues a Survey with questions about sexual orientation and gender identity

On the 10th anniversary of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Veterans Administration announces that soldiers discharged for homosexual conduct, gender identity or HIV status qualify for veterans' benefits

Dr. Rachel Levine becomes the first trans person confirmed by the US Senate when she was nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Health, she also became the first trans flag rank officer when she was sworn in as a 4 star Admiral for her job as head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, his makes her the highest ranked trans person in government

Holds the first ever vigil in the White House for Transgender Day of Remembrance

HHS announces rule change to reinstate and expand protections against discrimination in the Affordable Care Act, including denying coverage for gender-affirming care.

Social Security Administration reverses a Trump Administration policy and allows benefits claims by surviving partners in same-sex relationships, whose partner died before marriage equality was legal

President Biden signs the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (a bill he helped originally craft in the Senate) which for the first time has grant programs dedicated to expanding and developing initiatives specifically for LGBTQ survivors of domestic violence

The TSA announces new technology and policy shifts to improve the customer experience of transgender travelers who have previously been required to undergo additional screening due to alarms in sensitive areas.

The Social Security Administration allows people to edit their gender and name on records for the first time without legal and medical documentation

The US Air Force announces it'll offer medical and legal aid to any personnel families affected by state level anti-trans youth bills.

Karine Jean-Pierre becomes the first Lesbian to serve as White House Press Secretary

on 50th anniversary of Title IX The Department of Ed strengthens protections for Students against sexual harassment and discrimination

Veterans Affairs announces survivor benefits now extended to partners from relationships before marriage equality was legalized in 2015

President Biden signs the Respect for Marriage Act into law enshrining protections for marriage equality for same-sex and interracial couples

The Department of Ed announces new rules around athletic eligibility under Title IX, declaring blanket bans on trans students violate the law and setting up strike standards for schools

The White House announced a suit of new protections for LGBTQ people, including a new job at the Department of Ed to combat book bans, a joint DoJ Homeland Security effort to combat violence and threats and HHS evidence-based guidance to mental health providers for care of transgender kids

President Biden signs an Executive Order directing HHS to protect LGBTQI+ youth in the foster care system, a rule they later passed requiring Queer foster children to be placed in affirming homes

The Biden administration joins families of transgender youth in Tennessee and Kentucky in petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review and reverse a circuit court ruling allowing a ban on mainstream health care to be enforced

President Biden Signs a EO expanding on past EO on equality and helping underserved communities

The Department of Education's Civil Rights office opens an investigation into the death of Nex Benedict. President Biden in his statement said: "Every young person deserves to have the fundamental right and freedom to be who they are, and feel safe and supported at school and in their communities. Nex Benedict, a kid who just wanted to be accepted, should still be here with us today. Nonbinary and transgender people are some of the bravest Americans I know. But nobody should have to be brave just to be themselves. In memory of Nex, we must all recommit to our work to end discrimination and address the suicide crisis impacting too many nonbinary and transgender children.”