The Office of Management and Budget on Thursday announced changes to how the federal government asks about people’s race and ethnicity, including in the US census.
Under the new standards, scheduled to publish Friday, the government will collect race and ethnicity information using a single question and will include a new Middle Eastern and North African category as a choice, the Office of Management and Budget said.
The question measuring a respondent’s race or ethnicity will now include seven broad categories: White, Hispanic or Latino, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Middle Eastern or North African, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Under the previous standards, Hispanic or Latino ethnicity was measured in a question separate from the one on racial identity.
“Thanks to the hard work of staff across dozens of federal agencies and input from thousands of members of the public, these updated standards will help create more useful, accurate, and up to date federal data on race and ethnicity. These revisions will enhance our ability to compare information and data across federal agencies, and also to understand how well federal programs serve a diverse America,” Karin Orvis, US chief statistician within the Office of Management and Budget, said in a blog post released Thursday.
This is the first time in nearly three decades that the existing standards have been changed and is the result of a years-long effort, CNN previously reported. The Office of Management and Budget sets standards for both the wording of questions and the types of data government agencies and surveys must collect when they are gathering information about Americans’ racial and ethnic identities.
Federal agencies will have 18 months to submit an action plan to the OMB and are…
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