USA 2020 Census Results Thread (Release: Today, 26 April)

[Frodo]

Given the makeup of the Supreme Court, this could be the last census in which imputation can be used:

Conservatives aim at Census' method for uncounted households

When U.S. Census Bureau workers couldn't find out any information about some households after repeatedly mailing them questionnaire reminders and sending census takers to knock on their doors, the statisticians turned to an obscure, last-resort statistical technique known as “imputation.”

Less than 1% of households were counted using the technique during the 2020 census. But some conservative political groups are questioning it, potentially laying a foundation for legal challenges to the data that will ultimately be used for drawing congressional and legislative districts.

Imputation involves using information about neighbors with similar characteristics to fill in head counts or demographic characteristics for households lacking data. For instance, a rowhouse with no information may be counted as having two people if a neighboring rowhouse is occupied by two people. The technique tends to be utilized in hard-to-count places, often with racial and ethnic minorities, where people haven’t answered the census questionnaire and could otherwise go uncounted.

“It makes the overall dataset — or census in this case — more accurate than leaving the gaps blank," Pat Cantwell, a bureau official, said in a blog post earlier this year. “By using imputation, we fill in what we don’t know, using information we do know."

The focus for conservatives is on how this technique was applied to college dorms, nursing homes, prisons and other places where people live in groups. These residents were particularly difficult to count during the 2020 census because the pandemic sent college students fleeing campuses and put nursing homes in lockdown. In response, the Census Bureau unexpectedly decided to use the technique for group housing, where about 3% of the U.S. population lives.

[Frodo]

The CDC has recorded 3,565 million births since Census Day, 1 April 2020, and 3,521 million deaths.

That’s only 44,000 more births than deaths.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/provisional-tables.htm

The numbers are important for mid 2021 population estimates out in December.

Only second quarter 2021 data is missing, but it’s unlikely the US population has grown by more than 100,000 as a result of more births than deaths since Census day.

What about immigration gains?

Vintage 2019 estimates showed an immigrant increase of 500,000-a number which should decrease in the Covid19 era.

The mid 2021 estimate in December could indicate a population of 332 million, +0,6 million in a year and a quarter. That 0,15% growth is the lowest ever recorded.

Historians and demographers have explained that as a lagging side effect from the Great Recession.  So not too dissimilar to the drastic drop in births we experienced as a result of the Great Depression.  I don't think it will be permanent.  We will see by 2030 whether I am right that there should be a recovery in both the birthrate and immigration rate this decade. 

[Frodo]

The 2020 census likely left out people of color at rates higher than a decade ago

Last year's approximately $14.2 billion census likely undercounted people of color at higher rates than those of the previous once-a-decade tally, an Urban Institute study involving simulated census results released Tuesday suggests.

Researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank say that while the Census Bureau may have continued to overcount people who identified as white and not Latino, it also likely failed to count some 2.5 million people in other racial and ethnic groups.

The Urban Institute estimates that nationwide, the net undercount rates by race or ethnicity were highest for Black people (2.45%), Latinx people (2.17%) and Pacific Islanders (1.52%). The estimated net undercount rates for Asian Americans and Native Americans were each less than a percent.

The study, which cites NPR's reporting, also finds last year's net undercount rate for children under 5 (4.86%) is likely higher than what is considered the bureau's most reliable 2010 estimate. The net undercount rate for renters may have almost doubled over the past decade to 2.13%, and for households with noncitizens, that rate may have been as high as 3.36%.

The Urban Institute's method for calculating the national head count's accuracy is different from what the Census Bureau uses. The think tank's new figures come months before the bureau is set to start releasing its over- and undercount estimates from a follow-up survey for a census that was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and interference from former President Donald Trump's administration, including a failed push to add a citizenship question.

[Frodo]

On NOVEMBER 16, the geographic center of US population for the 2020 Census will be released

So where in Missouri will it be?

Image Link

The hart of America's near Hartville

So in coming decades, that center should reach Arkansas or Oklahoma once it leaves Missouri. 

[Frodo]

Or more accurately, it is the suburbs of Sun Belt cities that have been booming recently:

Sun Belt cities boom as major cities bleed population