As part of ongoing monitoring of the changes to America's evidence infrastructure, the Data Foundation has identified several critical developments since our previous reports. Recent organizational shifts across federal agencies and private sector firms continue to affect both the workforce and operational capacity for data collection, analysis, and evaluation activities:
- Implementation of reorganization plans continues to face legal challenges: Federal court injunctions are delaying implementation of Agency Reduction-In-Force (RIF) and Reorganization Plans at agencies, with the Ninth Circuit upholding restrictions on further reorganizations pending Supreme Court review.
- Data collection activities face operational constraints: Federal agencies are reducing data collection scope and access, including sampling reductions for key economic indicators due to hiring freezes, suspension of researcher access to restricted data, delays in statutory reporting deadlines.
- Contract reinstatements partially offset earlier terminations: The Department of Education disclosed plans to reinstate a portion of terminated contracts to comply with Congressional statutes, and notifications of discontinued data products.
- Leadership vacancies gradually filling across key Evidence Act positions: Chief Data Officer, Evaluation Officer, and Statistical Official posts remain vacant or filled by acting officials in multiple agencies, however some Chief Data Officer and Statistical Official posts have been officially assigned to new officials.
- Many agencies meeting requirements of Evidence Act evaluation reporting: Following public announcements of the forthcoming President’s Management Agenda, some federal agencies have begun to issue Annual Evaluation Plans for FY 2026 and agencies are developing multi-year learning agendas, as required by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018.
- Multiple data announcements for new funding available: The National Science Foundation through America's Data Hub continues to post new announcements of potential contracts to support the National Secure Data Service, including four new announcements in June 2025 that support data collection, fraud detection, and use of artificial intelligence (AI).
These key findings reflect the continuing evolution of federal evidence capacity and highlight the increasingly systemic nature of changes to America's data infrastructure. The Data Foundation will continue monitoring these developments to provide objective analysis of their impacts on government effectiveness and transparency, as well as impacts on private sector users.
