The U.S. Census Bureau announced on March 23 that it has selected Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina as the new sites for its 2026 Census Test. The test aims to explore the effectiveness of working with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and improve in-field enumeration processes ahead of the 2030 Census.
Starting May 1, approximately 154,600 households in both locations will be invited to respond online in English using computers, smartphones, or tablets. Phone and mail responses will not be available for this test. The questions asked will mirror those from the American Community Survey (ACS), covering demographic, social, economic, and housing topics such as name, race, sex, citizenship status, and education level.
Households that do not respond online may receive visits from census takers beginning June 1 through August 31. In a new approach designed to inform future nationwide implementation for the next decennial census in 2030, postal workers will participate in collecting responses from non-responding households at both sites but under different models.
In Huntsville, postal workers will be hired as temporary employees of the Census Bureau to collect responses outside their regular USPS work hours; they will identify themselves solely as Census Bureau staff during these visits. In Spartanburg, postal workers participating in the pilot will collect census data while delivering mail along their routes during normal work hours and remain identifiable as USPS employees. All participating postal workers must undergo background checks and special training on confidentiality requirements under Title 13 of federal law.
The test is designed to assess whether leveraging local knowledge and relationships held by postal workers can help reduce field workloads by decreasing repeat visits to non-responsive households—potentially lowering costs for future censuses. About twenty-five postal workers plus twenty-five traditional census takers are expected at each site.
According to information released by the bureau’s tip sheet summary: “This collaboration builds on the Census Bureau’s longstanding relationship with USPS and the vital role it plays in the census count.” For further details about this initiative or ongoing preparations for upcoming censuses visit official resources linked through their dedicated web pages.
