Political meddling at the Census Bureau damages the US statistical system

boshomi 79 points 38 comments September 06, 2026
www.piie.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (6 comments)

usernomdeguerre

>"We need to check more carefully who is credited and who is accountable for statistical agency releases. We need to watch carefully, when the 2025 American Community Survey eventually comes out, whether the ban on noise infusion leads to less data being published and which tables are suppressed. We also need to question seemingly technical methodological changes and scrutinize them for political motivation more closely." I didn't realize they were delaying the 2025 ACS again and it seems things are just going to get worse if things don't fit the narrative of the administration.

cowboylowrez

the US statistical system is currently down, I'm estimating that we won't get an accurate picture of what systems have been wiped out until we can get some forensic analysts in there in 2029 or so once we solve a little HR issue we have in the executive branch.

bamboozled

Absolutely insane how the USA is speed running into Russia. I was discussing BBQ with some friends the other day and living in Asia there are certain cuts that you basically have to get imported if you want to do it right. Basically every single person in that group, including Americans have decided they wouldn't trust or buy meat produce from the USA anymore as they don't trust it anymore...

davesque

Corruption in the US Census Bureau? No fuckin' way!

unwise-exe

Imagine how much more sense things would make if "Race [dropdown]" and "Hispanic? [Y/N]" weren't separate fields. Or if the available options made sense, or even allowed multiselect instead of having to pick only one. Or allowed for "all my ancestors that I know names of lived in the states, so stop trying to associate me with other places". . And, um, I can kind of understand thinking it's wrong to deliberately falsify results even in a controlled manner.

anonymousiam

I believe that most people are in favor of fixing the problems caused by the improper allocation of additional congressional representation to areas with larger populations of non-citizens. This piece complains about the upcoming changes without going into any depth on the problems these proposed changes will resolve.

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