Research Business Daily Report (RBDR) explored the growing controversy over the Census Bureau’s attempt to launch their own probability-based online panel to compete with the insights industry, and spoke with the Insights Association to learn more.
The Census Bureau and the federal government already run surveys, RBDR’s Bob Lederer noted, “so why create something like this?”
Howard Fienberg, Senior VP Advocacy for the Insights Association responded that, in theory, the project would allow the Bureau to “do more dynamic ongoing studies on-demand… [like] the Pulse Surveys of households and businesses” which launched during the pandemic. Those are “run-of-the-mill surveys as far as we’re concerned in the insights industry, but they are a big deal” for a large federal bureaucracy otherwise tied to complicated rules restricting how and when data can be collected.
Ultimately, Fienberg, suggested, the Census Bureau may just want to be “the uber provider of research to everybody.”
Of course, as IA has been informing the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the project will likely cost more than 10 times as much as the Bureau has so far estimated, with high ongoing operating costs, and require specialized expertise and technology that is not possessed by either the organization with which the Bureau has contracted for help, nor the Bureau itself.
Watch RBDR’s full interview and discussion:
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