The Official 2020 Census Thread

[Tender Branson]

48.1% (+0.2)

That’s a painfully slow daily increase.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday.

48.6% (+0.5)

[Tender Branson]

49.1% (+0.5)

[Tender Branson]

Funny how Pendleton County, WV lags their 2010 response rate by more than 40% right now, while Madison County, VA outperforms their 2010 rate by 17% already.

There are not that many counties right now that are outperforming their 2010 rates at this early stage already ...

And the 2 counties are not that far apart, maybe a few 100 kilometers.

[Tender Branson]

49.4% (+0.3)

Ughh ... 0.5 yesterday, now down to the mediocre 0.3 again.

NV had the biggest increase (+0.7), and is now slightly ahead of the US average again.

In total, 26 states are now above the US average, 24 + DC + PR below.

[Tender Branson]

Oh man ... some people are so stupid to believe they are getting Trump$$$ because they filled out the census form:

https://twitter.com/brittabble/status/1251016187107893248

[Tender Branson]

Good read:

"Filling Out a Census Has Always Been a Political Act"

BY ANDREW WHITBY  APRIL 17, 2020 10:00 AM EDT


Census taker talking with a housewife on porch of her home, c. 1940. Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images

He also has a new book out (might buy it):

The Sum of the People

How the Census Has Shaped Nations, from the Ancient World to the Modern Age

by Andrew Whitby

This fascinating three-thousand-year history of the census traces the making of the modern survey and explores its political power in the age of big data and surveillance.

In April 2020, the United States will embark on what has been called “the largest peacetime mobilization in American history”: the decennial population census. It is part of a tradition of counting people that goes back at least three millennia and now spans the globe.

In The Sum of the People, data scientist Andrew Whitby traces the remarkable history of the census, from ancient China and the Roman Empire, through revolutionary America and Nazi-occupied Europe, to the steps of the Supreme Court. Marvels of democracy, instruments of exclusion, and, at worst, tools of tyranny and genocide, censuses have always profoundly shaped the societies we’ve built. Today, as we struggle to resist the creep of mass surveillance, the traditional census — direct and transparent — may offer the seeds of an alternative.

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/andrew-whitby/the-sum-of-the-people/9781541619340/

He's a bit wrong though:

"Filling Out a Census Has Always Been a Political Act"

Hmm ... maybe because the emphasis is on "filling out" here: in a register-based census in most EU countries, it is not political any longer. Everyone is already pre-registered in some of the various registers, so they only need to compile the numbers.

[Tender Branson]

Nearing a major milestone, with every second household in the US returning their form:

49.8% (+0.4)

[Tender Branson]

Nearing a major milestone, with every second household in the US returning their form:

49.8% (+0.4)

Los Alamos (NM) is the 1st county in the US to pass the 70% response rate.

Even though NM as a state is the 3rd-laziest so far (might even be passed by WV soon).

Minnesota will pass 60% tomorrow.

[Tender Branson]

Census extension could help get better count of diverse communities

Roll Call

BTW: When is Congress supposed to pass the extension ?

[Tender Branson]

New NYT article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/coronavirus-census.html

The good news:

... is that the public response to date has been encouraging. The half of known households that have already submitted census forms is more than the bureau’s analysts had expected by now, and filing by the internet — a new option that some feared would be a risky gamble — has so far proved a welcome success. (Those who haven’t yet responded can do so here even without mailed instructions at hand.)

If that continues, the bureau expects to surpass its goal of getting roughly six in 10 households to complete forms before it has to deploy an army of door-knockers to track down the rest, the agency’s spokesman, Michael C. Cook, said on Thursday. And that is vital: The more households that send in forms on their own, the less it will cost to find those who do not respond.

The bad news:

Responses by mail, the standard method in decades past, are muddled because social distancing has reduced the staff that processes forms. The bureau had planned to send a new batch of forms by now to every household that had not responded to earlier mailings, but virus-caused slowdowns at the bureau and the Postal Service have delayed that until the month’s end.

So ... it seems not every household that has not responded yet has gotten a paper questionnaire (planned for April 8-16).

If they get them out by end-April, it would take until mid-May or longer until the returns are processed and show up in the rates.

60-65% response would be pretty good for end-May.

[Tender Branson]

More than half of America’s 150 million households have responded as of today:

50.2% (+0.4)

[Tender Branson]

New NYT article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/coronavirus-census.html

The bad news:

Responses by mail, the standard method in decades past, are muddled because social distancing has reduced the staff that processes forms. The bureau had planned to send a new batch of forms by now to every household that had not responded to earlier mailings, but virus-caused slowdowns at the bureau and the Postal Service have delayed that until the month’s end.

So ... it seems not every household that has not responded yet has gotten a paper questionnaire (planned for April 8-16).

If they get them out by end-April, it would take until mid-May or longer until the returns are processed and show up in the rates.

60-65% response would be pretty good for end-May.

The news article is muddled.

The first two mail outs were sent out to 95% of households. They were customized by address (each address has a unique 12 character pass code).

The first two mail-outs could have been prepared in advance, and likely were sorted in mail route order, and probably injected into the USPS system and regional centers. Even if you discover some late addresses, it is straightforward to add those automatically. They don't have to be pre-sorted. Perhaps it costs an extra fraction of a cent to mail those. Mail is not stuffed in envelopes by hand.

It might be that returned questionnaires have to be opened by hand. You have to check for forms with jelly on them, those with staples, etc. the scanners themselves are probably amazing, detecting upside-down and backwards pages, missing pages, etc. They will be OCR'ed and classified, and likely set aside. Any checking might wait.

By March 30th, midpoint of the 3rd mailing, 36% of households had responded. This would not count those who were held up by USPS delays, or delays in the Census Bureau mail room, where returned forms had not been scanned by Bureau employees standing further apart than usual. Maybe there were also delays due to UV-radiating paper returns. Perhaps the return envelopes are coded. Those might count as a self-response. The same might be true of internet responses are incomplete. Someone mentioned that they found a way to to skip a question. Follow-up can occur later, if they want workers to concentrate on those filling out the form.

5% of the non-respondents were in the update/leave group. So around 59%, in the first group had apparently not responded. It would not hurt to have the post card sent to those who had responded a day or so earlier. The printing of the postcards can be fully automated, since they only have to be customized with the code and address. So the post cards would have gone out on time or nearly so.

By April 12th, midpoint of the 4th mailing, the national response rate was 48%. This mail out included a questionnaire for those who had not received one initially. Again this mailing could be automated.

Since April 12, returns from Minnesota have been 1.4% internet (53.7% to 55.1%) while non-internet returns have gone up 3.8% to 5.1% (1.3% increase). So 1/2 of the most recent returns from the midpoint of the questionnaire mail out have been on paper. These would include time for delivery, filling in, taking to the post office, and return to census bureau, which would explain that it was not instantaneous.

We can conclude that the 4th mailing to the self-response went out on time, or near to it.

The final mailing, a reminder post card wasn't scheduled until April 20. NRFU wasn't scheduled to begin until May 13. This last post card was designed to get those last few to trickle in. A few percent more still cuts down on costs, but expecting slackards to respond voluntarily become extremely remote.

What has been delayed has been the update/leave representing about 5% of housing units, but a smaller share of households. The update portion is to survey in part to discover housing units that would not be expected to respond (vacant, non-habitable, etc.). It was hoped that these areas would have fallen into the five-mailing plan once the initial contact was made.

The Census Bureau announced that they were going to attempt to mail to these housing units. But this might take some coordination with the USPS, since mailings would go to RR boxes or postal boxes.

No, we cannot.

I guess the NYT has insider information from the Census Bureau.

I guess that the April 8-16 mail questionnaires did NOT go out to all non-response households yet.

I guess that only some areas or states got them, but others not.

You only base your findings on MN, but not other states ...

I think there could be a major delay if they are understaffed right now.

[Tender Branson]

50.5 (+0.3)

The final 2010 rate of 66.5% would be reached in ca. 50 days, if the average stays around 0.3 to 0.4 per day.

[Tender Branson]

50.7% (+0.2)

[Tender Branson]

50.5 (+0.3)

The final 2010 rate of 66.5% would be reached in ca. 50 days, if the average stays around 0.3 to 0.4 per day.

You may not have accounted for the correction in the denominator, nor the update/leave areas. We need additional information on the effect of the mailing of questionnaires.

As of yesterday, 75 million households (or housing units ?) have submitted their data.

That's 50.7% of all households/units.

Which means 100% would be 147.93 million - which is different to the 150+ million during the 2019 address listing operation:

Another chart:

150.448 / 75 million = 49.85% response.

Considering the US added more housing units since 2019, the response rate is closer to 49%.

[Tender Branson]

The rate will be ca. 51.0% today, up by 3.5 points in the past 10 days.

Returns are declining at a fast rate now, even as postal questionnaires are already sent out.

What impact will they have on the returns until the end of May ?

That's the big question.

I expect that the returns will pick up slightly and another 4% will be added until the end of April, so 55% then.

Then it should decline to +3.5% (May 1-10), +2.5% (May 10-20) and +2.0% (May 20-30).

63% by May 31 seems realistic to me (final 2010 rate: 66.5%), which could be reached by end-June.

[Tender Branson]

51.0% (+0.3)

Iowa and Kentucky had 0.5% increases, all others below.

West Virginia is about to overtake New Mexico for 2nd to last after Alaska.

The South is generally below US-average, but TN will soon hit 51% and will become the first Southern state to hit that level. Unless you count VA, MO and KY as Southern too.

[Tender Branson]

MI, WA, NV, MN and KY are the top-performers so far, relative to their final 2010 rates.

MI has 84.5% of their 2010 rate in already, WA 83.9, NV 83.1, MN 82.2 and KY 82.0

At the bottom:

AK 61.0%, WY 66.6, MT 66.7, NM 66.8 and WV 67.2

Over the past 10 days, WV, KY, CA, NV and VT had the biggest gains relative to their final 2010 rates.

MS, TN, NC, WI and VA had the smallest gains.

[Tender Branson]

KY or NV currently have the best chances to be the first few states to top their final 2010 response rates in ca. 25-30 days (if their current speed keeps up of course).

[Tender Branson]

So how much longer until we have enough of the Census results in until we know how the House will look for the 2020's ?

Usually, the Census is to be completed by Dec. 31st (President gets the data).

But this year, the Census Bureau is seeking an extension because of the Virus (read last few pages).

Congress meets again in May or June and will likely approve the extension of 4 months - meaning that Trump will very likely never see the results because they are out on April 30 (assuming he loses).

It also allows for more time to self-respond (well into the fall), before census takers hit the streets.

[Tender Branson]

Above-average returns yesterday ...

51.6% (+0.6)

[Tender Branson]

(Post)

Thanks for your long explanation, but I guess 2010 and 2020 are not really comparable.

Whereas 2010 was almost exclusively paper questionnaires and 2/3 completed by end-April, we now have seen mostly internet responses for 52%.

The paper questionnaires have only been sent out to non-responding households and A) not all might have gotten it by now (understaffing due to Coronavirus) and B) not all that were returned might have been processed as a result (also understaffing and security measures).

So, the responses will trickle in at a higher rate for the coming weeks, compared to 2010 when they also trickled in ... but at a virtually non-existing rate after April.

Besides, 2020 will have almost an additional 6 (!) months for households to respond, something that was not the case in 2010.

The rate will eventually go up to 70-80%.

[Tender Branson]

51.8 (+0.2)

Back to crappy increase levels ...

[Tender Branson]

That’s funny, Jimbo.

Anyway, it’s update time:

52.4% (+0.6)

[Tender Branson]

It seems the paper questionnaires are now starting to „kick in“.

Some states like IA, NE etc. had more than 1% increases yesterday (almost all coming from paper returns).

This should continue for the next 2-3 weeks or so.

60% should be hit fairly soon.