The census’ official count of the American population is not ready yet, but the Census Bureau is issuing a progress report.

The bureau said Tuesday, for instance, that its 2010 count would cost about $1.6 billion less than budgeted. This works out to about 11 percent less than the $14.7 billion appropriated over 12 years for the 2010 count, and 22 percent less than budgeted for this year.

Robert M. Groves, the bureau’s director, also said Tuesday that despite declining response rates to surveys in general, 72 percent of households returned the mailed census questionnaires, about the same proportion as in 2000. The response rate improved in areas that were considered harder to count, like neighborhoods with a disproportionately high share of poor people or immigrants.

Census enumerators knocked on the doors of 47 million households that did not return the mailed questionnaire, the bureau reported. Enumerators failed 22 percent of the time to interview the residents personally and had to rely on neighbors or building managers for information about those households. Ten years ago, those so-called proxy reports accounted for 17 percent of the enumerator follow-ups.