Questions about sexual orientation and gender identity, and changes to queries about race and ethnicity, are on track to be on the questionnaire for the most comprehensive survey of American life by 2027.

Statisticians and demographers are sounding the alarm about threats to official data gathering in the U.S. They warn that funding for the federal statistical agencies is inadequate and measures in a House appropriations bill could undermine what Americans know about themselves.

The U.S. Census Bureau plans to test questions about sexual orientation and gender identity for its most comprehensive survey of American life.

The U.S. Census Bureau is thinking about how to ask about sex.

Facing a growing backlash, the U.S. Census Bureau has halted plans to change how it asks people about disabilities.

There are more women than men in some of the largest urban U.S. counties east of the Mississippi River, on the Eastern Seaboard and in the Deep South.

The U.S. Census Bureau is asking the Biden administration for permission to test questions about sexual orientation and gender identity for people age 15 and above on its most comprehensive annual survey of life in the country.

The U.S. Census Bureau is contemplating getting rid of a question about a person’s ancestry on its most comprehensive survey.

The U.S. Census Bureau is putting on hold plans to apply by 2025 a controversial method for protecting the privacy of participants in its most comprehensive survey of Americans after facing pushback from prominent researchers and demographers.

Sexual orientation and gender identity.

New data released by the Census Bureau shows the U.S. grew wealthier, better educated and poverty declined during the second half of the last decade.

Researchers are worried about coronavirus-related disruptions to one of the U.S. Census Bureau’s most important surveys about how Americans live, saying a gap in the 2020 data will make it more difficult to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and measure year-to-year changes.

“As the labor market tightened more in certain areas and in certain fields we would see more robust income growth for those groups," Ohio State economist Trevon Logan said in an email. “Also, higher concentration in urban areas with larger job growth and increases in minimum wage can also play a role in income gains." While income growth has been comparatively flat in a vast majority of U.S. counties, it has been concentrated in a handful of communities, said William Spriggs, an economist at Howard University. Blacks are over-represented in public employment, which experienced anemic income growth,” Logan said. Asian Americans make up almost 6% of the U.S. population.

MACOMB COUNTY, Mich. – The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is not just impacting people’s health -- every state in the country is down from its February employment levels. READ: Why you should care about the American Community SurveyMany people in Metro Detroit have lost their jobs and are struggling to put food on the table. Macomb Community Action is working to ease the burden. Click here to learn more about the organization. Watch the video above for the full story

MACOMB COUNTY, Mich. – The American Community Survey is a 46-page document you may have been tempted to ignore if you’ve already filled out your 2020 Census quick form -- but don’t. “Every year the Census conducts the American Community Survey,” Ernest Cawvey, with Macomb Community Action, said. The households randomly chosen for the American Community Survey represent thousands. There are three ways to fill out the American Community Survey. READ: More 2020 Census coverage

The survey revealed noticeable economic differences between male couples and female couples, as well as same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. Same-sex married couples had a higher median income than opposite-sex married couples, $107,210 compared to $96,932. In same-sex marriages, though, male couples earned more than female couples, $123,646 versus $87,690. According to the survey, same-sex married households were more likely to be in the workforce than opposite-sex married households, 84.6% compared to 80.4%. More than 16% of same-sex married households were interracial couples, double the rate for opposite-sex married couples.