The Official 2020 Census Thread

[Tender Branson]

Daily response map update (data submitted through Sunday, 22 March):

21.0% (ca. 30 million out of 135 million US households)

Highest:

27.5% Nebraska

Lowest:

11.3% Alaska

https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

[Tender Branson]

Audubon County, Iowa is the first county in the US so far to pass the 40% response rate level.

[Tender Branson]

The response rate update this coming Saturday (with data submitted until Friday, March 27) will be key:

If the trend continues (+1.4% to 2.0% each day, x5), the response rate by then would be somewhere between 28% and 31%.

The Saturday date is key, because it marks 1 week since the last initial invitation letters went out to US households (= last Friday).

In 2010, the last day those initial invitation letters went out was March 17, 2010 and the response rate map went online a week later on March 24 with 16%.

Therefore, early 2020 response could be almost double of what it was 10 years ago ...

(The emphasis is on „early“, because people could just respond early and then there’s a drop off.)

[Tender Branson]

Based on this chart from 2010, the response rate should jump to 60-70% in a matter of 2-3 weeks:



According to the chart, 60% was hit on April 6, 2010.

The comparable date this year would be after April 10.

[Tender Branson]

Even if 80% of American households would respond online/by mail/phone this year (which would be a record) - it would leave 20% (or 27 million of the 135 million households) left to be counted by census takers.

Here is how Coronavirus complicates this:

https://www.rollcall.com/2020/03/24/coronavirus-crisis-complicates-in-person-census-outreach

27 million households. That’s ca. 50 households to visit and survey for each of the 500.000 temporary census takers. Plus tens of thousands of homeless people.

[Tender Branson]

Daily response rate update:

The rate jumped a massive 2.6% to 23.6%, with forms submitted until yesterday.

Nebraska and Wisconsin are already above 30%, MN and IA just below.

Alaska dead last.

https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

[Tender Branson]

Daily response rate update:

The rate again jumped by a massive 2.6% to 26.2%, with forms submitted until yesterday.

Wisconsin now has surpassed Nebraska as the state with the highest response rate at 32.9%, but NE, IA and MN are all close behind.

Alaska dead last.

https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

[Tender Branson]

The response rate is currently twice as high as during the comparable time in 2010 ...

Based on current trends, 80%+ is doable, which would be an absolute record.

[Tender Branson]

The biggest surprise so far is Mississippi:

It trailed the final US-wide response rate by a lot in 2010, but is now far ahead of the US average.

[jimrtex]

The biggest surprise so far is Mississippi:

It trailed the final US-wide response rate by a lot in 2010, but is now far ahead of the US average.

I looked through the states by congressional district. Some interesting results, where the districts fall into different color levels:

AL, CA, WA high tech employment in Microsoft, Silicon Valley, and Huntsville.

IL, PA, VA higher response in suburbs?

OH effect of gerrymandering?

NY-5 it says it is plurality African-American, but a big chunk are from the Caribbean.

MI, MN, and WI. The denominator in the response rates is housing units not "occupied primary residents". When determining census tracts, there are both population and housing unit limits. In some summer areas, the number of housing units is controlling.

WV this may be due to a similar effect, with large number of abandoned housing units in coal country.

TX effect of fajita strips?

[Tender Branson]

Can anyone give a proper explanation why the final mail participation rate from 2010, which was 74%, was re-calculated down to 66.5% in the current 2020 response map ?

The only explanation I can come up with is that the number of households in the US went up during the past 10 years, from 125 to 135 million, so the new base of 135 million would be used as a starting point and the final responses from 2010 were re-calculated as a share of it.

Anyway, no matter if we use the original 74% or the re-calculated 66.5% from 2010, it looks as if 2020 returns will top both.

[Tender Branson]

The coronavirus should not stop the US census

Gillian Tett

Last week an envelope dropped through my front door marked “Census 2020” and “Your Response Is Required By Law”. In normal circumstances, I might have chucked it on to my pile of bills and ignored it until the last minute. But now I am trapped at home. So I opened the envelope, went online to complete the survey — and then felt a twinge of moral satisfaction, not just because I had ticked a job off my “to do” list, but for two bigger reasons as well.

One is the fact that we all need to find ways to uphold civil society and democracy right now — and in the US (like most other countries), the census is a cornerstone of this. So much so, in fact, that the Founding Fathers embedded the census into the constitution and it has been conducted every 10 years since, irrespective of domestic strife or economic depression. The only time that Congress has rejected its results was in 1920, when politicians refused to believe the tally of urban immigrants (in 1930, Congress also insisted that the unemployment count was redone).

Of course, some might argue that there is a case to delay the 2020 census, given the extraordinary current circumstances. Perhaps so. Normally, the schedule for the census mandates that households should return their forms, voluntarily, by April 1. Fieldworkers then do house-to-house calls to chase up non-respondents until late July. The latter is clearly impossible to organise right now.

But the fact that the census can be completed online at home should make it possible to finish the voluntary submissions; and even if fieldworker visits need to be delayed, it would be a grave mistake to use the coronavirus to scrap the 2020 census or delay it indefinitely. After all, it is not just an administrative task; it is a crucial process in enabling government to allocate resources fairly (and manage voting procedures accurately).

https://www.ft.com/content/ba8a9e0a-6e2b-11ea-9bca-bf503995cd6f

[Tender Branson]

Homeless and has given up on society.

Homeless are especially hard to count. Here's why:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/26/california-homeless-census-2020-coronavirus

Yet it would be very important if they got counted, because of the additional funds a town would get.

[Tender Branson]

Daily response rate update:

28.1% (+1.9)

Wisconsin first (35.0%)

Alaska dead last (16.2%)

https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

[Tender Branson]

Vice Presidential candidate Abrams on the 2020 Census:

https://twitter.com/emilyslist/status/1243202373037649921

[Tender Branson]

Cardi B calls on New Yorkers to fill out the census

https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/489784-cardi-b-calls-on-new-yorkers-to-fill-out-the-census

[jimrtex]

Can anyone give a proper explanation why the final mail participation rate from 2010, which was 74%, was re-calculated down to 66.5% in the current 2020 response map ?

The only explanation I can come up with is that the number of households in the US went up during the past 10 years, from 125 to 135 million, so the new base of 135 million would be used as a starting point and the final responses from 2010 were re-calculated as a share of it.

Anyway, no matter if we use the original 74% or the re-calculated 66.5% from 2010, it looks as if 2020 returns will top both.

It is likely related to factors mentioned in this article which was published in March 2010.

New Measure of Participation in the 2010 Census

In 2010, the Census Bureau tried to mail out a form to every address that was potentially residential.

In 2020, the Census Bureau tried to mail out an invitation to every address (some are sent a paper form as well).

In 2020, the number of housing units is about 139M. The number of households was about 120M. Not all housing units contain a household. It is normal for 5% or more of apartments to be vacant. One tenant moves out, and the next tenant doesn't move in for a month or two later. An adult child loses their job, and moves in with their parents. Newly weds who owned their own homes, combine households. Some housing units are seasonal.

A retired couple moves between Arizona and Minnesota with the seasons. Maybe they arrive after Thanksgiving but wait until May to return. They are in Arizona on April 1, but they sleep in Minnesota 7 months per year. Maybe they decide to throw the Arizona invitation in the trash, rather than inform the Census Bureau.

The Census Bureau will have some bad addresses, which will be returned. This may be less of a problem in 2020 vs 2010, but not a non-problem.

So in 2010 after they followed up, the Census Bureau would find that there should not have been an initial response, because nobody lived at an address. This improves the response rate, and would be a better measure of how people participated.

In 2020, they don't know how many letters they sent to vacant housing units. So the initial response rate is somewhat lower than it will be at a later date. So to compare censuses, they should use comparable measurement.

[Tender Branson]

Daily response rate update:

30.2% (+2.1)

Wisconsin first (37.4%)

Alaska last (17.6%)

https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

[Tender Branson]

WV is already pretty bad, but McDowell County has a 0.5% response rate so far.

Are there even any people left, or just abandoned housing units ?

I guess most of WV doesn’t have internet either to get counted.

[jimrtex]

WV is already pretty bad, but McDowell County has a 0.5% response rate so far.

Are there even any people left, or just abandoned housing units ?

I guess most of WV doesn’t have internet either to get counted.

Or they don't have home mail delivery. About 95.4% of housing units are being contacted by self-response, where an invitation is sent to a residence (not a resident). The resident can respond by internet, or request a phone call or paper form. In some cases, the initial invitation will include a paper form. This is used in areas with low internet access, or language or other issues (the paper form is bilingual English-Spanish, double sided with English on one side, and Spanish on the other.

In about 4.5% of the housing units (around 5.9 million) update-leave is used. In this method, primarily for housing units where mail delivery is not to the location of the housing unit. a census enumerator leaves a form as well as an invitation to use the internet.

But you will see that this type of enumeration has been delayed due to COVID-19.

2020 Census Operational Adjustments Due to COVID-19

Originally scheduled from March 15-April 17, it has been delayed from March 29-May 1.

Even under the best of circumstances, only about 13/34 of households would have been contacted. Because of the delay, none have. A person can respond online, by entering their address - but realistically how many people would know about that? TV or radio stations might not mention that "some" listeners won't be getting forms on schedule, particularly since they might not have gotten it by now anyhow. The Welch News is quite small, and the county government is only open for emergencies. Perhaps the library is closed.

This app shows the different Type of Enumeration Areas (TEAS). If you zoom in far enough, you can see the percentage of housing units in each census tract that utilize update-leave. McDowell County is the southernmost county in West Virginia.

2020 Census: Type of Enumeration Area (TEA) Viewer

I estimate only 0.4% of housing units got an invitation by mail. Based on households/housing units about 31% of housing units are vacant. Remembe McDowell has lost 80% of its post-WWII population. Even assuming that households are 1/2 the size of then (4.6 vs 2.3 persons/household), the number of households (and therefore need for housing has declined by 60%). You can take about 42% of housing units out of service, and still have 31% vacancy.

[Tender Branson]

WV is already pretty bad, but McDowell County has a 0.5% response rate so far.

Are there even any people left, or just abandoned housing units ?

I guess most of WV doesn’t have internet either to get counted.

Or they don't have home mail delivery. About 95.4% of housing units are being contacted by self-response, where an invitation is sent to a residence (not a resident). The resident can respond by internet, or request a phone call or paper form. In some cases, the initial invitation will include a paper form. This is used in areas with low internet access, or language or other issues (the paper form is bilingual English-Spanish, double sided with English on one side, and Spanish on the other.

In about 4.5% of the housing units (around 5.9 million) update-leave is used. In this method, primarily for housing units where mail delivery is not to the location of the housing unit. a census enumerator leaves a form as well as an invitation to use the internet.

But you will see that this type of enumeration has been delayed due to COVID-19.

2020 Census Operational Adjustments Due to COVID-19

Originally scheduled from March 15-April 17, it has been delayed from March 29-May 1.

Even under the best of circumstances, only about 13/34 of households would have been contacted. Because of the delay, none have. A person can respond online, by entering their address - but realistically how many people would know about that? TV or radio stations might not mention that "some" listeners won't be getting forms on schedule, particularly since they might not have gotten it by now anyhow. The Welch News is quite small, and the county government is only open for emergencies. Perhaps the library is closed.

This app shows the different Type of Enumeration Areas (TEAS). If you zoom in far enough, you can see the percentage of housing units in each census tract that utilize update-leave. McDowell County is the southernmost county in West Virginia.

2020 Census: Type of Enumeration Area (TEA) Viewer

I estimate only 0.4% of housing units got an invitation by mail. Based on households/housing units about 31% of housing units are vacant. Remembe McDowell has lost 80% of its post-WWII population. Even assuming that households are 1/2 the size of then (4.6 vs 2.3 persons/household), the number of households (and therefore need for housing has declined by 60%). You can take about 42% of housing units out of service, and still have 31% vacancy.

Thanks,

but why are these households not getting mail in the first place ?

Isn’t US mail supposed to deliver in all places - except in overly rural areas such as Alaska or Wyoming ?

McDowell County is very poor, but not exactly „very rural“, so I don’t understand why 99.5% of households there get no mail, not even once a week ...

I also read on Census Bureau’s „Quick Facts“ that 65% of county households indeed have Internet access, so the response rate should be higher.

But if they got no mail invitations in the 1st place ... not.

[Tender Branson]

WV is already pretty bad, but McDowell County has a 0.5% response rate so far.

Are there even any people left, or just abandoned housing units ?

I guess most of WV doesn’t have internet either to get counted.

In about 4.5% of the housing units (around 5.9 million) update-leave is used. In this method, primarily for housing units where mail delivery is not to the location of the housing unit. a census enumerator leaves a form as well as an invitation to use the internet.

But you will see that this type of enumeration has been delayed due to COVID-19.

2020 Census Operational Adjustments Due to COVID-19

Originally scheduled from March 15-April 17, it has been delayed from March 29-May 1.

Even under the best of circumstances, only about 13/34 of households would have been contacted. Because of the delay, none have. A person can respond online, by entering their address - but realistically how many people would know about that? TV or radio stations might not mention that "some" listeners won't be getting forms on schedule, particularly since they might not have gotten it by now anyhow. The Welch News is quite small, and the county government is only open for emergencies. Perhaps the library is closed.

They should not have delayed that specific update-leave operation IMO:

If it’s just about leaving an invitation letter or paper questionnaires at a household, they can drive around from one house to another and drop off the materials there in the mailbox or on the porch - without having any contact with people, spreading the virus.

The same is true for later census taking: the 0.5 million census takers need to wear gloves and masks and keep 6 feet distance with the interviewed person and everyone’s OK.

Completely suspending the followup interviews would do incredible damage to the whole 2020 Census, because it would increase the polarization further: well-off households respond and get counted, urban/rural poor households, inner-city migrant areas & homeless are not.

[Tender Branson]

Mississippi and Michigan are the top-responders so far, compared to their final 2010 rates.

In both states, more than 52% of their final 2010 rate is already in:

MS: 32.1 of 61.3 (= 52.4%)
MI: 35.2 of 67.7 (= 52.0%)

At the bottom:

WV: 20.6 of 59.1 (= 34.9%)
AK: 17.6 of 55.6 (= 31.7%)

I'm keeping a daily table to watch for changes.

[Tender Branson]

Daily response rate update:

30.2% (+2.1)

Wisconsin first (37.4%)

Alaska last (17.6%)

https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

Today: 31.6% (+1.4)

Today is also the comparable start date for the 2010 response map.

It started with 16%, the 2020 rate so far is twice as high.

[Tender Branson]

Most of WV is classified as an UPDATE/LEAVE area - which explains the low response in the Southern part.

It also explains the lagging rates in AK, MT, WY, NM and the Latino parts of TX.

It would be pretty bad if those regions were not visited by census takers because of the virus.

On the other hand, it is compensated by a higher response rate in other areas.

(Right-click for huge map)