BLS
BLS and Census Bureau Pause Decrease in CPS Sample Size Following Friends of BLS Letter
As previously reported by COSSA, the Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) coalition sent a letter urging the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to modernize the Current Population Survey (CPS) with additional funding in FY 2025. On October 29, BLS and the Census Bureau, who jointly sponsor the survey, announced that they have paused intent to decrease the CPS sample size in January 2025. A $6 million anomaly in the continuing resolution (CR) passed by Congress in late September (see previous COSSA coverage here) was provided to fund the sample size assuming the funding remains in any final bills or future CR’s passed by Congress…
Friends of BLS Urge Congress to Provide Appropriations for Modernizing CPS
On September 24, the Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), of which COSSA is a member, urged the House and Senate Appropriations Committees through a sign-on letter to modernize the Current Population Survey (CPS) with additional funding in fiscal year (FY) 2025. Jointly sponsored by BLS and the Census Bureau, CPS collects labor force statistics data to help inform the status of the social and economic welfare of the country. Two years of flat funding have required CPS to decrease the sample size of the population survey, creating a detrimental impact on important federal data collection. With 120 signatures, the letter details…
Senate Makes Progress on FY 2020 Appropriations for NSF, Census, NIH, Education, USDA
With the passage of a continuing resolution through Thanksgiving giving Congress some breathing room to complete fiscal year (FY) 2020 appropriations, the Senate Appropriations Committee has finally made progress in approving a number of its annual appropriations bills. COSSA has released analyses of three Senate bills that fund agencies important to the social and behavioral sciences: Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which funds the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and Census Bureau Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which funds the National Institutes of…
COSSA Submits Testimony to Senate in Support of Funding for NIH, CDC, ED, BLS
As it does each year, COSSA submitted outside witness testimony to the Congressional Appropriations subcommittees responsible for funding federal agencies important to the social sciences. On June 3, COSSA submitted testimony to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies calling for increased fiscal year (FY) 2020 funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Institute for Education Sciences (IES), and International Education and Foreign Language Programs (Title VI and…
House Committee Approves FY 2020 Spending for NIH, CDC, BLS, AHRQ, ED
On May 8, the House Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year (FY) 2020 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill; the Labor-HHS Subcommittee advanced the bill on April 30. This bill contains annual funding proposals for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Education (ED), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), among other federal departments and agencies. In a departure from what has become regular practice, the Labor-HHS bill was one of the first out the gate this year; the…
William Beach Confirmed as BLS Commissioner
On March 13, William Beach was confirmed as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a protracted wait. Beach was originally nominated by the Trump Administration in October 2017 (see COSSA’s previous coverage). He is an economist who spent much of his career at conservative think tanks and was most recently Vice President at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. He also spent several years as Chief Economist for the Senate Budget Committee Republican Staff and has been involved in the evidence-based policy-making activities of the last several years. The Friends of BLS, of which COSSA is a…
House Committee Approves FY 2019 Labor-HHS-Education Funding
On July 11, the full House Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year (FY) 2019 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill; the Labor-HHS Subcommittee advanced the bill on June 15. This bill contains annual funding proposals for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Education (ED), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), among other federal departments and agencies. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported its version of the bill on June 28 (more here). At a Glance… The House bill includes…
BLS Releases New Data on the “Gig Economy”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released new data on contingent and alternative employment arrangements, the first data of its kind released since 2005. The data includes totals for contingent workers (whose jobs are temporary or otherwise not expected to last), independent contractors, on-call workers, temp workers, and workers provided by contract firms. In addition to this data, BLS is testing questions on short-term work found through websites or mobile apps and expects to release data on this population in September. More information about the release is available on the BLS website.
BLS Technical Advisory Committee Accepting Nominations
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Technical Advisory Committee is accepting nominations to fill five upcoming vacancies. The Committee advises the Bureau on technical aspects of data collection and the formulation of economic measures and makes recommendations on areas of research. BLS is interested in candidates who have a strong familiarity with BLS data and economic statistics. Nominations should be submitted by January 5, 2018. More information is available in the Federal Register notice. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
William Beach, Former Budget Committee Economist, Nominated as BLS Commissioner
The White House has nominated William Beach for a four-year term as Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), succeeding Erica Groshen, whose term expired in January, and William J. Wiatrowski, the Acting Commissioner since Groshen’s departure. Currently Vice President for Policy Research at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, Beach holds a Ph.D. in economics from the UK’s Buckingham University. Prior to joining the Mercatus Center, Beach served as the Chief Economist for the Senate Budget Committee’s Republican staff and the Lazof Family Fellow in Economics director of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation. BLS Commissioners…
Senate Labor-HHS-Education Bill Approved by Committee
On September 7, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its fiscal year (FY) 2018 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill; the Labor-HHS Subcommittee advanced the bill on September 5. This bill contains annual funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Education (ED), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), among other federal departments and agencies. The House Appropriations Committee passed its version of the bill on July 19; the bill recently passed the House as part of a 12-bill…
Preliminary Details of House Labor-HHS Bill Released
On July 7, the House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Subcommittee passed its fiscal year (FY) 2017 appropriations bill for agencies and programs under its jurisdiction, which include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Department of Education, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), among others. While text of the draft appropriations bill was released to coincide with the Subcommittee markup, the Committee Report is not expected to be released until the bill is marked up by the full Appropriations Committee on…
Senate Presses Forward on 2017 Spending Bills
The Senate Appropriations Committee has been making progress over the last several weeks on its fiscal year (FY) 2017 appropriations bills in an effort to pass as many of the bills as possible before heading home in mid-July for the party conventions and August recess (follow all of the developments on the COSSA website). The FY 2017 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Bill, which made it out of Committee on April 21, is expected to be on the Senate floor later this week. Stay tuned – COSSA will be closely monitoring the floor debate as this is when we could…
Senate Bill Seeks Flat Funding for NSF, NIJ for FY 2017
On April 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year (FY) 2017 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) Appropriations Bill. This bill serves as the vehicle for annual appropriations for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Census Bureau, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), and countless other federal departments and agencies. The next step for the CJS bill is consideration on the Senate floor, which has not yet been scheduled. The bill would provide NSF with a total budget of $7.5 billion in FY 2017, flat with the FY 2016 enacted level. Most notably the Senate bill does…
Members of Congress Submit Funding Requests for Social and Behavioral Science Agencies
Over the past several weeks, Members of Congress have been signing their names to “Dear Colleague” letters, formal requests to the House and Senate appropriations committees for specific funding levels for various federal agencies. COSSA has been tracking letters in support of strong funding for the agencies important to the social and behavioral sciences on our funding updates page. COSSA appreciates the efforts of all of the Members who have signed on to the letters below: House & Senate letters on FY 2017 appropriations for HEA-Title IV/Fulbright-Hays International Education and Foreign Language Studies programs House letter on FY 2017 appropriations…
House and Senate Appropriations Committees Approve FY 2016 Labor-HHS Bills
The Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate advanced their respective fiscal year (FY) 2016 bills for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS). The House passed its version on June 24 (see COSSA’s preliminary analysis of the bill), and the Senate on June 25. Both bills would provide sizable increases for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with a larger increase coming from the Senate’s bill. The House bill proposes to completely eliminate the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) but maintains strong funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while the…
COSSA and Partners Encourage Strong FY 2016 Appropriations
As Congress begins to consider funding for fiscal year (FY) 2016, COSSA has joined dozens of other organizations and coalitions on letters to appropriators in support of strong levels of funding for the federal agencies that support social and behavioral science research. Check our website for the most updated list of letters COSSA has joined. March 3: $172 million for the National Center for Health Statistics, House/Senate (Friends of NCHS) March 23: $7.8 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Coalition) March 23: $375 million for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, House/Senate (Friends of AHRQ) April 2: $633…
Analysis of FY 2015 Senate Labor-HHS Bill
In late July, the Senate Appropriations Committee released the text of its fiscal year (FY) 2015 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill. This is the annual spending bill that provides funding to the National Institutes of Health and other HHS agencies, the Department of Education, and the Department of Labor, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As previously reported, the bill was approved by the Labor-HHS Subcommittee in June, but action has since stalled. It is unclear if or when the full Senate Appropriations Committee will take up the bill. COSSA’s full analysis of…
COSSA Analysis of FY 2015 Senate Labor-HHS Bill
On July 24, the Senate Appropriations Committee released bill language and the accompanying Committee report for the fiscal year (FY) 2015 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations bill. The Labor-HHS Subcommittee approved the bill via voice vote in June (see Update, June 12, 2014). It is still unclear when or if the measure will be considered by the full Senate Appropriations Committee. Instead, it is all but certain that Congress will enact a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to allow time to complete the FY 2015 appropriations process after the November elections. You can read…