Beginning in October 2024, the HPS content was transitioned into a longitudinal design. In January 2025, the HPS officially relaunched as an integral part of the Household Trends and Outlook Pulse Survey (HTOPS). The HTOPS survey content alternated between HPS-focused content, which addressed timely issues affect U.S. households, and content submitted by internal Census partners and stakeholders, allowing for flexible, targeted exploration of emergent topics.

The HTOPS used a longitudinal design throughout 2025 and shifted to a cross-sectional design beginning in March of 2026. In its cross-sectional design, the HTOPS continues to provide timely insight into national events that have social and economic impacts on U.S. households and enables the Census Bureau to address research and content development needs for its Census and survey programs.

The HPS has been a collaborative undertaking in partnership with the following federal agencies:

The data collected enabled the Census Bureau to produce statistics at the national and state levels and for the 15 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (metro areas).

Data users are advised to refer to the HPS Data webpage to access data products from the HPS.

In order to support the nation’s recovery and the social and economic well-being of U.S. households, we sought to know the ways emergent issues affected people’s lives and livelihoods. Data from this survey show the widespread effects of critical matters on individuals, families, and communities across the country from a social and economic perspective.

The Census Bureau and its federal statistical partners are considered the preeminent source of the nation's most important benchmark surveys.  Many of these surveys have been ongoing for more than 80 years and provide valuable insight on social and economic trends. 

The production of these benchmark surveys is by nature a highly deliberative process. The process to release the data from these surveys can take months, sometimes years, before data are made publicly available.  

The approach for the Household Pulse Survey is different: it is designed to be a short-turnaround instrument that provides valuable data with a short turn-around time. The Census Bureau is fielding the Household Pulse Survey as a part of the agency’s Experimental Data Series; as such, data products may not meet some of the Census Bureau’s statistical quality standards. Data are subject to suppression based on overall response and disclosure avoidance thresholds.