WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- A plan to cut funding for a U.S. Census Bureau survey on how social programs help needy families has gotten bipartisan negative reaction.
The Commerce Department proposed to cut the two-decades-old Survey of Income and Program Participation budget by September, The Washington Post reports.
Officials call it too expensive and providing too little information and said, vaguely, it is putting together a new survey to get the same data.
The survey costs $40 million a year to conduct, by tracking recipients for two to four years regarding their use of various federal programs.
Census Bureau officials said people are increasingly uninterested in answering personal questions and publishing the information has been hampered by delays.
The proposal will cut the funding to $9.2 million. $5.6 million of that would go to developing the new program.
But Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., Christopher Shays, R-Conn. and Maurice D. Hinchey, D-N.Y., plan to ask the White House to stop the plan and Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, D-Md., called it "a major step backward."
This week a letter signed by 250 economists and social scientists will ask Congress to fully fund the study, citing the need for the information it produces.
And Brookings Institution fellow Ron Haskins, one of few conservatives signing the letter, called the cut hasty and nonsensical.
"I think we need more, not less, information about low-income Americans," he said.
