Delays of various FFIEC census products related to anti-redlining reporting, with the coronavirus crisis being blamed, will be released “in a sequential manner” as the data become available, the federal financial institutions’ umbrella group said Friday.
In a release, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) said the release schedule is:
- March 30 for census tract minority and ethnic population data, which will be issued as a limited flat file as the first part of the FFIEC 2022 census products release.
- March 17 for 2016-20 American Community Service (ACS) data, which had been delayed from December 2021.
- Summer of this year for release of a second version of the 2022 FFIEC census products.
- Calendar year 2023, for release of a third update of the census products. The agency noted the timing of that release is “contingent on the release of the DHC (Demographics and Housing Characteristics) file, which is tentatively scheduled for 2022.”
The exam council noted that the March 30 release will cover only demographic information, not tract income categories used in Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) or other fields that are derived from the ACS 5-year survey (2016-2020).
“When a field is normally included in the FFIEC flat file but is not available in the Redistricting Data, the field will be left blank,” the exam council noted. The release will include each census tract’s minority and ethnic population and will be available for download on March 30, 2022, according to FFIEC.
Regarding the 2016-20 ACS 5-year data, the agency said its census team will process the data and, shortly thereafter, provide an ad hoc release of census tracts and the corresponding income tract categories. “The list will utilize information provided in the 2016-2020 ACS 5-year data release and will be separate from the flat file releases,” the agency said.
The second version of the 2022 census products flat file will include all census fields that were provided in the 2016-2020 ACS 5-year data release, FFIEC said. The third version, according to the exam council, will include “backfilled” missing demographic fields from the previous releases with decennial census DHC files.
FFIEC timeline for various census data related to CRA reporting