The December deal to fund the US government for the current fiscal year included an increase of 14% for the National Science Foundation and 6% for the National Institutes of Health, along with double-digit percent increases for several statistical agencies. Released in March, the president’s requested budget for fiscal year 2024 (FY24) also has favorable increases for the agencies but will face the new Republican majority in the US House of Representatives, where there is a desire to reduce federal government spending to FY22 levels.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN), Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), and Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) introduced the Data Science and Literacy Act in the House of Representatives February 14, following advocacy by the ASA and its members that formally kicked off at the Joint Statistical Meetings.

ASA Member Michael Fay responds to Tommy Wright’s July 2021 Amstat News article on apportionment computations for the US House of Representatives with an alternative perspective.

Basic arithmetic skill (multiplication, division, and taking square roots) is all one needs to remove any mystery concerning the details of the computations about how to determine the number of seats each state gets based on its population.