The 81st Annual AAPOR Conference brought together researchers from across the industry to learn from one another, strengthen connections, and explore the role of polling and survey research in informed decision-making. The SSRS team has gathered key takeaways from select sessions to continue the conversation beyond the event.

We Have to Make the Case — A Discussion of American Public Opinion About the U.S. Federal Statistical System

At AAPOR 2026 in Los Angeles, we opened the Director’s Cut session, “Polling, Official Statistics & Public Trust: Reinforcing the Public Value and Accessibility of Official Data.” Our focus was the federal statistical system, the public data infrastructure that helps government, businesses, nonprofits, and communities understand the country and make decisions. Engaging on this topic isn’t about taking a political side; it’s about protecting the evidence base every sector depends on. When these systems weaken, the effects don’t stay in Washington. They show up in planning for hospitals and schools, emergency response, business forecasting, and local services.

We emphasized three points:

  • Federal statistics are essential, if invisible, infrastructure. In 2020, local health departments used Census Bureau data to site COVID-19 testing locations. Farmers rely on USDA crop data. Markets and the Federal Reserve move on BLS reports. Most people never see these systems—but they depend on them daily.
  • The system is under real, historic pressure. Some federal statistical agencies lost 30–40% of their staff in 2025, according to the American Statistical Association. Disruptions to data collection, staffing, and access are already affecting the researchers, local governments, and businesses that rely on this data.
  • Public trust matters—and it needs care. 70% of Americans believe officials need federal statistics to make good policy, and 72% want data collection to continue regardless of politics. But trust in the data itself dropped from 53% to 47% between June 2025 and March 2026—support for the mission remains strong even as confidence in execution slips.

This isn’t only a concern for researchers. It matters to anyone who uses data to make decisions, allocate resources, serve communities, or understand social and economic change. Most Americans already believe good public data matter, the bigger challenge is awareness: most don’t know what has already been lost, or how directly it touches their own lives.

That is where researchers, research users, and other stakeholders all have a role to play. Researchers can explain in plain language how this data supports real-world decisions. Research users and institutional leaders can ask where information comes from, advocate for strong public data sources, and speak up when systems are weakened. SSRS’s EMERGE initiative, which surveyed more than 500 federal data users and found 93% had experienced disruptions to their work—is one example of organizations working together to document impact and preserve access to critical data.

That was a central theme of this year’s conference, and it’s one SSRS will continue to engage through our research and client work. Good public data help all of us see the country more clearly. Protecting that foundation takes a shared effort.

 

Contact Jordan Peugh or Chris Jackson for more information.