Request for Nonsubstantive Change

The U.S. Census Bureau requests permission to make non-substantive changes to the questionnaire under the clearance for the Federal Statistical System Public Opinion Survey (OMB number 0607-0969). The objective of this research is to gather data on public understanding of and trust in Federal Statistical Agencies and federal statistics. These public opinion data will enable the Census Bureau to better understand public perceptions, which will provide guidance for communicating with the public and for future planning of data collection that reflects a good understanding of public perceptions and concerns.

From February 2012 through September 2013, the Census Bureau added 25 questions nightly onto an ongoing data collection by the Gallup Daily Tracking Survey. From October 2013 through March 2014, the Census Bureau added 10 questions to the survey. Under a recompeted contract, Gallup resumed data collection on September 15, 2014 continuing through the end of this clearance on August 28, 2015. When clearance was granted again on October 23, 2015, we reinstated the 5 core items as well as the first set of rotational items under this clearance.

Core questions focus on awareness of and attitudes towards federal statistics and federal statistical agencies. Five questions are core time series questions and there is the option to collect data on up to 20 other items on a rotational basis. We are proposing asking several new items on knowledge and willingness to provide information on the status of a person’s neighbor’s housing unit, which could be used to save money in the 2020 Census.

In addition, we wish to reinstate an item from 2012 asking about belief in a centralized database of information from the federal government. We will use this question to examine any change in trends – whether overall belief has changed and whether any of the relationships with other variables have changed. And finally, we wish to reinstate a series of questions using alternate names for administrative records and third party data. This question will be modified to include a number of terms not originally included in the initial fielding of this series. These will be used to form communications campaigns around the use of administrative records for the 2020 Census.

OMB and Census have agreed that these rotating questions constitute non-substantive changes to this submission. Attached to this letter is the tracking document that contains a complete history of all questions asked and the date that each question was or is planned to be asked.

We are requesting to field these questions from April 11 through July 20, 2016.

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and study design is:

Jennifer Hunter Childs

Center for Survey Measurement

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

202-603-4827

jennifer.hunter.childs@census.gov