CPS 2025 NSC Request

OMB Non-Substantive Change Request

Department: Commerce

Agency: U.S. Census Bureau

Title: Current Population Survey (CPS)

OMB Control Number: 0607-0049

The U.S. Census Bureau requests a non-substantive change to the currently approved CPS Information Collection Request. The Census Bureau last received a one-year clearance by OMB, which expires on October 31, 2025.

Background and Justification

The Census Bureau, in conjunction with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is proposing an experimental collection in the Current Population Survey (CPS) of Race and Ethnicity information using the new SPD15 standard. The main goal of the study is to assess the effect of the new race and ethnicity standard (2024 SPD15) on estimates obtained from the CPS. The study will also aid in the implementation of the new standard for interviewer-administered data collections (both in-person and by phone). The study will examine the impact of differences in reporting using the new 2024 standard and the 1997 standard (which CPS currently is using) on race distributions, labor force estimates, weighting, and missing data.

Data Collection

Starting in July 2025, CPS will collect race and ethnicity information using the 2024 SPD15 questions in rotations 2 through 8 to get a full representation for the initial analysis. From August 2025 onward, collection of race and ethnicity information will occur for every household in rotation 2 until the 2024 SPD15 based questions are fully implemented in the CPS. This will help reduce question-bias by not asking race in the same interview. To reduce respondent burden and to avoid introducing complexity to the production instrument, replacement households and new persons will not be asked 2024 SPD 15 questions. In addition, in August 2025 only, we plan to re-ask the 2024 SPD15 based questions for households in rotation 3 to analyze the consistency of reported races using the 2024 SPD 15 questions (as data using the 2024 SPD questions will be collected in both July 2025 and August 2025).

Burden

There is no change in respondent burden hours associated with this request.