Vendors and nonprofits running public services: contract awards, performance penalties, subcontracting chains and margins earned on program delivery.
First-Class stamps stay at 78 cents after USPS skipped a January 2026 increase, but the agency has kept consolidating its processing network and expanded revised service standards for mail moving long distances.
Since April 14, 2025, people who cannot verify their identity through a personal my Social Security account for certain services must prove who they are in person at a field office, under rules the agency announced in March 2025.
The Census Bureau's 2026 Census Test, the first major on-the-ground trial for the 2030 count, was scaled back from six planned locations to limited operations in two, a change that advocacy groups have criticized.
Ten months after HHS and FDA announced a national push to end petroleum-based synthetic dyes in the food supply, food manufacturers have until January 2027 to comply and drugmakers until January 2028.
The fee schedule that took effect in January 2025 raised patent fees about 7.5 percent and adjusted 28 trademark fees, and the agency has posted additional petition-fee changes for August 14, 2026.
The State Department is still quoting 4 to 6 weeks for routine passport service and 2 to 3 weeks for expedited, a pace it has kept since shortening routine processing after the pandemic backlog.