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On March 28, President Biden released his proposed Fiscal Year 2023 budget request. The President is required by law to submit the budget request to Congress by the first Monday in February. However, this year’s submission was delayed while Congress and the Administration completed work on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 appropriations bills, which were finally passed and signed into law on March 15--almost six months after the fiscal year began.

The President’s budget is not a legally binding document. It is a statement of the current Administration’s funding and policy priorities and marks the first step in the annual appropriations process. Congress uses the President’s budget to inform its work as it drafts and considers the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund all Federal government agencies—ideally before the next fiscal year begins on October 1.

The below table summarizes some of PAA’s major interests in the President’s FY 2023 budget submission. In addition to the proposed funding levels, the President’s budget also includes several policy recommendations of interest to the population research community:

• $81.7 billion for pandemic-related activities over five years of which the National Institutes of Health would receive $12.5 billion;
• $5 billion for a proposed new agency, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health (ARPA-H), that will initially focus on fast-tracking platform technologies for cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease;
• $60 million for gun violence prevention research at the National Institutes of Health ($25 million) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ($35 million);
• Additional funding for the National Center for Health Statistics to expand the sample size of the National Health Interview Survey to allow for disaggregated estimates and intersectional analyses of healthcare access, chronic disease conditions, and mental health status by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  
• An initiative at the Census Bureau to improve the measurement of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) population in the American Community Survey;
• Over $400 million for the Census Bureau to finalize and evaluate the 2020 Census and lay the groundwork for a successful 2030 Census; and,
• $880 million to support and expand the new Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate at the National Science Foundation.

*$5 billion of the NIH ask (and most of the proposed increase) is designated for ARPA-H