Happy New Year! As we embark on a new year filled with possibilities, it’s time to share exciting updates and innovations that will shape the 2030 Census.

Conducting a census is an incredibly complex undertaking that takes years of planning, and we want to keep you informed on our progress and thinking along the way.

Today, I’ll describe what to expect as 2024 unfolds, including our strategies for preparing for the 2030 Census, updates on our first major field test, the release of the initial 2030 Census Operational Plan and wrapping up the 2020 Census.

We are committed to transparency and keeping you informed. Soon, we plan to relay our strategies for:

• Conducting a complete count.
• Designing operations.
• Developing the IT solutions.
• Sourcing contracts.
• Engaging with stakeholders for the 2030 Census.

These strategies will give you a comprehensive view of how we’re approaching fundamental aspects of census preparations this decade. For example, our strategy for designing operations outlines the process for developing and documenting operations over the course of the decade in the 2030 Census Operational Plan.   

Major Field Test

I’m pleased we’ll be able to provide more details this year about our first major field test – the 2026 Census Test. Testing throughout the decade on various levels gives us the opportunity to explore novel technologies and methodologies while ensuring we stay on course and meet our mission of conducting a complete and high-quality count of the nation.

As we announced in July 2023, our testing strategy for the 2030 Census has two main components:

• Ongoing small-scale testing through 2029.
• Two major field tests in 2026 and 2028.

This year, we plan to continue what we call “small-scale” testing and use our findings to inform, enhance and refine 2030 Census operations. Our small-scale testing provides insight into how people engage with the invitation materials they receive in the mail and with the online questionnaire.

In 2026, we will conduct our first major field test. The 2026 Census Test will put in action elements of the first operational design (more on that below) that are new from past censuses, so we can be sure they work as expected. The operational design will be based on a variety of inputs, including recommendations from our research projects, public feedback we received from our outreach efforts, other research (e.g., findings of our 2020 quality assessments) and our small-scale testing. We will also collect data for modeling the effectiveness and costs of our census operations.​​

The 2026 Census Test will examine if new and improved systems and methods, researched and developed for the 2030 Census, are viable in real-world operations.

To keep you informed, we plan to host two webinars this year about the 2026 Census Test:

• In the spring, we’ll share information on the scope of the test, which will reflect the parameters of our testing efforts for key enhancements and innovations. Through this scope, we’ll share our priorities for the test and what it needs to accomplish.
• In the summer, we’ll discuss the sites selected and the criteria and process used for selecting them. Site location can significantly impact the test’s success and relevance. With the needs of the test in mind, we will carefully consider representation, geographic factors, audience reach, performance and cost efficiency to ensure a robust and meaningful outcome. 

This year, we also plan to wrap up our initial research on the 2030 Census design. We’ve been working on 55 research projects, over half involve addressing our ability to effectively enumerate historically undercounted populations. You can learn more about these research projects on the 2030 Census Research Project Explorer.

All this work, along with small-scale testing results, which help us with ongoing improvements, will culminate in developing the first baseline of the 2030 Census Operational Plan – the big-picture plan for conducting the census. We plan to complete the 2030 Census Operational Plan Baseline 1 in December 2024 and release it early in 2025.

The operational plan documents the high-level design for conducting the 2030 Census. Baseline 1 will represent our thoughts on the operational design (the work needed to conduct the census) before we’ve completed the testing and initial end-to-end program integration. 

After releasing Baseline 1, we will leverage findings and insights from our tests to update and enhance our operational design. As we learn more and refine our ideas, we’ll update the operational design and release future baselines, with each one providing a more mature view of the 2030 Census design, including details on specific operations.

Again, conducting the census is complex, so our design will evolve, and we’ll keep you informed as we go.

We share your desire for a census that accurately reflects the diverse and evolving nature of the nation's population. It’s part of how we fulfill our Constitutional responsibility to enumerate the country. Your expertise, experience and community engagement help us enhance data quality and build a census that is trusted, inclusive and representative of the population.

Beginning this year, the 2030 Census Advisory Committee will assist us in gathering external perspectives on our plans to address census undercounts, communicate with different communities and collect census information in an efficient way.

We expect to announce the committee members soon, and we plan to begin holding regular committee meetings in the spring and fall. These meetings will include updates on our 2030 Census planning as well as issues for the committee to ponder. The Census Bureau will then consider the committee’s recommendations from those meetings.

We invite and encourage you, the public, to actively participate and share your feedback with the committee members. Your input is valuable and helps shape our planning.

In crafting our plans for carrying out the 2030 Census, we also consider feedback from government agencies, oversight entities, experts and stakeholders (such as community partners and data centers), as well as lessons learned from previous censuses. As we shared in a webinar last October, we have also incorporated public feedback submitted through a Federal Register notice into our 2030 Census research agenda. We just published the final report that dives deeper into how we reviewed and analyzed your comments.

While we eagerly unveil 2030 Census updates, we also want to keep you informed about ongoing 2020 Census activities.

We are working to ensure that we continue to produce the high-quality data products the public expects. This year, we plan to release:

• The Island Areas Censuses Detailed Cross Tabulations in February.
• The Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics File B (Detailed DHC-B) and the Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File in September.

Learn more about 2020 Census data products on our webpage.

Throughout 2024, we’ll also continue to release 2020 Census Evaluations and Experiments (EAE) operation reports. These reports detail studies consisting primarily of operational assessments and include evaluations, experiments and quality control results. The list of planned studies by type, description and tentatively scheduled completion date are available on our EAE webpage. Results documented in the 2020 Census EAE operation serve as the foundation for designing, testing and implementing the 2030 Census.

Thank you for your support! This blog is not just a reflection of our progress but an acknowledgement that your engagement contributes to the success of the census. Thank you for being an integral part of our mission.

Until the next update, please visit the 2030 Census webpage to follow preparations for the next decennial census.