The 2030 U.S. Census will include new race and ethnicity check boxes for Hispanics and people of Middle Eastern and North African descent, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced Thursday, a major change in the way the government tracks demographics.
The change is the first in race and ethnicity categories in 27 years, and comes after years of criticism that major racial and ethnic groups are being left out of demographic collections.
Previously, the Census asked Hispanics about their identity in two different questions: Whether they were Hispanic or Latino, and then whether they were white, black, Native American, or another race.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Thursday released the results of its Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (SPD 15) and issued updated standards for maintaining, collecting, and reporting race and ethnicity data.
“This process began in June 2022, with the first convocation of the Interagency Technical Working Group of career Federal Government personnel representing programs that collect or use race and ethnicity data. Since that first meeting, we reviewed 20,000 comments and conducted nearly 100 listening sessions to finalize the important standards we announced today,” OMB reported.
“Thanks to the hard work of staff at dozens of federal agencies and input from thousands of members of the public, these updated standards will help create more useful, accurate and up-to-date federal data on race and ethnicity,” said Chief Statistician Karin Orvis. of the US in a statement. “These reviews will improve our ability to compare information and data across federal agencies, as well as to understand how well federal programs serve a diverse America.”
What is the result of the reviews?
The Task Force’s final recommendations included several critical revisions that have been exhaustively researched and tested over the past decade.
The revisions, announced by the Office of Management and Budget, will take place in the 2030 census.
The updated standards released Thursday by OMB closely follow the Task Force’s evidence-based recommendations and make key revisions to the questions used to collect information on race and ethnicity, including:
Use a combined question for race and ethnicity and encourage respondents to select as many options as correspond to how they identify.
That will give respondents the option to choose several categories at the same time, such as “black,” “American Indian,” and “Hispanic.”
Research has shown that a large number of Hispanics are not sure how to answer the question about race when asked separately, because they understand that race and ethnicity are similar and often choose “another race” or do not answer the question.
Add Middle East or North Africa as a new minimum category.
The new set of minimum race and/or ethnicity categories are:
- American Indian or Alaska Native
- Asian
- Black or African American
- Hispanic or Latino
- Middle East or North Africa
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
- White
Require the collection of additional details beyond the minimum required categories of race and ethnicity for most situations, to ensure greater disaggregation in data collection, tabulation, and presentation where useful and appropriate.
The updated standards also include several additional updates to definitions, terminology, and guidance for federal agencies on data collection and reporting.
All federal demographic collection will reflect the new standards within five years maximumthe OMB said, and the changes will be implemented in government departments starting Thursday.
Changes will be reflected in data collection, forms, surveys and the census questionnaires published by the federal government once a decadeas well as in state governments and the private sector because businesses, universities and other groups often follow Washington’s lead.
Federal agencies have 18 months to submit a plan for how they will implement the changes.
Keep reading:
– They propose ‘Latino’ and ‘Middle Eastern or North African’ boxes for official US forms.
– First Latino director of the US Census Bureau commits to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion
– They criticize the Census Bureau for leaving out millions of Hispanics in the 2020 census