Newsletter Archive
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Take Action! Annual Report on Households Assisted by the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and More
May 04, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreReport of the Week: Annual Report on Households Assisted by the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). LIHEAP provides assistance to low-income households to help pay for heating and cooling costs. This collection is used to gather information about LIHEAP program utilization and about the characteristics of households receiving LIHEAP support. ACF is proposing several changes to the collection, including removing questions on race, ethnicity, and gender, which will make it more difficult to determine if LIHEAP funds are serving communities equitably. According to the listing, ACF is removing the race and ethnicity questions because they are not statutorily required and not used for eligibility determinations.
Comments due June 8.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
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Take Action! Lifeline and Link Up Reform and Modernization (and More)
April 27, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreProposed Rule of the Week: Lifeline and Link Up Reform and Modernization. The Lifeline program is designed to help ensure that low-income Americans are able to receive affordable communications service. In this proposed rule, the FCC is making or considering several data-related changes to the program, including requiring collection of full Social Security Numbers, using the SAVE and Do Not Pay systems to verify participant identity, making changes to the "one-per-household" rule that could result in de-enrollment of many people who live in group quarters, disallowing state-based eligibility verification, and revising eligibility requirements to impose a five-year waiting period for eligible non-citizens and to mirror some of Medicaid's more restrictive eligibility requirements. These and other changes are designed to curb "waste, fraud, and abuse" in the Lifeline program.
Comments due May 4.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
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Take Action! National Survey on Drug Use and Health and More
April 14, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreField Test of the Week: National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Methodological Field Tests. Data from the NSDUH are used to provide estimates of substance use and mental illness at the national, state, and substate levels. NSDUH data also help to identify the extent of substance use and mental illness among different subgroups, estimate trends over time, and determine the need for treatment services. Generally, the methodological tests included under this listing will explore things like questionnaire design, participation incentives, and sampling techniques.
Comments due May 12.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
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Take Action! Shaping the Future of Loan Repayment and More
April 07, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreStudy of the Week: Shaping the Future of Loan Repayment. This new Participation and Repayment Progress in Federal Student Loan Plans study is intended to help IES understand which borrowers do and do not enroll in Income Driven Repayment plans, why they do so, how long they stay in their plans, their repayment behaviors, and other household finance and life course outcomes, as feasible.
Comments due May 18.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
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SPD 15 Progress: Implementation Despite No Implementation Plans
April 02, 2026by Amy Vertal and Meeta AnandRead MoreIn March of 2024, OMB modernized its Statistical Policy Directive 15 (SPD 15), its standards for the collection of race and ethnicity data at the federal level: an important step towards capturing more thorough and actionable data. Many federal agencies collect information about the race and ethnicity of U.S. residents through surveys, program and benefits applications, and other mechanisms. Data on race and ethnicity serve several critical purposes, from informing federal services and program administration to protecting civil rights and ensuring equal opportunity. Complete, detailed, and high-quality race and ethnicity data are vital for federal agencies to function effectively and better serve the nation’s increasingly diverse population, allowing all U.S. residents to thrive.
The 2024 SPD 15 standards went into immediate effect when released for all new data collections, and established a 5-year timeline for agencies to implement the updated standards on other data collections. This timeline initially required federal agencies to publish and submit to OMB their plans to implement 2024 SPD 15 by September 28, 2025, and to fully implement the updated standards by March 28, 2029. On September 26, 2025, OMB announced a 6-month delay to both deadlines. On March 27, 2026, the day before agencies were due to provide their implementation plans, OMB further pushed back the deadline for the submission of implementation plans: now they are due on March 28, 2027. However, the deadline for full implementation remains March 28, 2029. In the meantime, in the past year alone we have seen 75 collections implementing the 2024 SPD 15, in whole or in part – and we look forward to continuing to see such implementation take place, even in the absence of published implementation plans.