IA Urges Census to Keep Race and Ethnicity Questions

US trade body the Insights Association has today written to the Commerce Department asking it to reject a reported proposal to strip race and ethnicity questions from the 2030 Census.

The IA says the decennial count has captured this data since 1790, and that losing it would 'hobble' the insights industry's work and bring 'significant costs and huge risk' for many other sectors relying on its output for informed decision-making.

The letter, addressed to Secretary Howard Lutnick, was apparently prompted by a Talking Points Memo report on a draft Census Bureau rule said to be under consideration at the Commerce Department, which Lutnick heads. The IA says the Census race and ethnicity data function is an 'irreplaceable' statistical benchmark, not just one data point among many, and adds: 'No private data source - commercial, administrative, or otherwise - can substitute for the Census Bureau's constitutionally-mandated universal enumeration.' The potential omission threatens the correct weighting of survey data to reflect the national population, with implications for a number of 'everyday business functions - panel-building, ad audience measurement, marketing mix modeling, product testing, retail site selection, and election polling.'

The letter also makes reference to Lutnick's own experience, noting that he has 'personally seen the value and importance of capturing and using all available data points' in his time overseeing Cantor Insights and other insights functions at Cantor Fitzgerald. It requests: 'keep your own experience front and center' while weighing the proposal.

The IA's previous interventions over Census content include urging the first Trump administration not to add a citizenship question to the 2020 decennial survey - it claimed the addition would deter responses from immigrants, both legal and illegal, and could result in minorities being undercounted. The administration backed down over this after a lengthy dispute.

Web site: www.insightsassociation.org .