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

[cinyc]

Census is going to report the date next week that the apportionment count will be released this afternoon.

[cinyc]

For the first time ever, military members (stationed abroad) were counted in their current/last base of deployment on the mainland - not where they privately live:

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989938913/potential-changes-from-census-changing-how-it-counted-deployed-u-s-troops-in-202

This will boost states with a lot/big military bases.

Could this push NC pass GA?

Hard to say. It depends on who was deployed overseas where on April 1, 2020. GA has a large military base, too (Fort Benning). NC has Marine bases, though.

[cinyc]

Census is going to report the date next week that the apportionment count will be released this afternoon.

Did they end up making a decision?

Not yet. My response was based on a Tweet from NPR Census Reporter Hansi Lo Wang:

https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1385656831104663559

I assumed afternoon, but it appears evening, if at all.

Census just put out their Tip Sheet and I don't see any mention of a release date in it.

[cinyc]

The newest Twitter rumor is that the apportionment count will be out Monday afternoon:

https://twitter.com/SamWangPhD/status/1385939017619943427

[cinyc]

I'm pretty confident that it's going to be the 30th. Always gotta drag their feet for no particular reason.

Maybe. We don't have any official date or time yet from Census, despite the Twitter rumors.

[cinyc]

I'm pretty confident that it's going to be the 30th. Always gotta drag their feet for no particular reason.

Maybe. We don't have any official date or time yet from Census, despite the Twitter rumors.

Unless you think it could be later than April 30th, this is a rather meaningless comment. Of course I don't know that it's on the 30th, but that's what my gut feeling has been for a while now ever since they gave that as their deadline. I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's anytime earlier.

That was not a meaningless comment. It was a comment on the current state of what is.

I'd usually trust Sam Wang (who is plugged into census things) over your or my gut any day, but Census' failure to give us a date on Friday when someone said they were going to do so on a conference call doesn't give me much confidence in anything unless it's directly out of Census' mouth.

[cinyc]

There's an interactive map for relative self-response rates by tract:

https://cinycmaps.com/index.php/20-census/monthly-self-response-rate

But I'd caution everyone that self-response isn't everything. Non-response follow-up efforts and imputation matter, too.

[cinyc]

Census' YouTube stream has started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnZqLlOwUhE

No press conference yet. They're going through facts about data collection and the like.

[cinyc]

Also any idea when we'll be getting results for the biggest cities in the country? I wonder if the city of Austin's population has crossed 1 million.

July 1, 2021 ESTIMATES come out on May 27. But those estimates were way off vs actual Census in the Northeast. See my spreadsheet here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SRUw_xrjD7bhgnLyeS-OJ2ptD1kCOmbOyXStlWxYzhA/edit?usp=sharing

The actual census redistricting file is supposed to come out around August 16 in raw form and by September 30 in tabular form.

[cinyc]

If NY had 89 more people, it wouldn't have lost seats?? This is crazy

MN is #435

Cuomo single-handedly cost New York a seat.

Who cost Texas its third?

RI, AL, MN

cost AZ, TX, FL

The 2020 Census was about 1% higher than an estimate based on the July 2020 estimates interpolated to April 1, 2020.

TX and FL were not quite that high, while AZ was lower than the estimate.

RI was much higher than the estimate - the census estimate for RI was among the worst for some reason. This is pretty odd since there is not much migration to/from Rhode Island and birth/deaths are easier to track. TX, AZ, and FL are harder to estimate because of large scale migration, both interstate and international.

TX gained enough for an increase of 2.8, but it was from 35.6 to 38.4 (they just barely got 36, and didn't quite get 39. They are quite likely to get +3 in 2030, with a chance of +4 with a small uptick.

My take is AZ cost AZ - it’s the only state whose results really came in much, much lower than the 7/1/2020 PEP estimates rolled back to April 1. But NY’s and especially RI’s vastly exceeding those 7/1/20 expectations (combined with AL exceeding expectations and MN doing a little better) is a bigger  part of the story than most give credit. Yes, TX and FL slightly underperformed expectations, but just by a little, comparatively.

AZ greatly missed the mark in 2010, too, according to Pew.

So, are the PEP estimates bad in the Northeast (and PR) or is something funky with the Census?

[cinyc]

Apologies if someone has already mentioned this, but if there was a significant Hispanic undercount, would it have affected Mexican/Central American Americans more than groups like Cuban Americans?

Most likely.  I bet FL and TX were both undercounted though.  

Good going Republicans!  Making Hispanics afraid to answer the census likely cost you two seats in Congress and 2 electoral votes for a decade.

This is the standard take, but I think it needs more supporting evidence that it currently has, which we’ll only know when we get the redistricting data.

FL and TX only mildly missed their estimates baselines - both by less than a point, depending on the baseline. MN beat its estimates baseline by about 1 point, AL 2 and NY and RI about 4 points. So the real story may be NY and (especially) RI doing much better than expected more than TX and FL lagging. (PR, HI, NJ and VT were among the other major overachievers).

AZ significantly underperformed its baseline estimate, just as it did in 2010. It’s a serial lagger for some reason.

[cinyc]

Census put out at least 2 blog posts about the quality of the count that we might find interesting:

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/04/examining-operational-metrics.html

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/04/comparisons-to-benchmarks-as-a-measure-of-quality.html

Some takeaways for the tl;dr crowd:

-65.28% of census addresses were resolved by self-response, vs 61.05% in 2010.
-Only 55.48% of non-response follow up households “were enumerated with a household member; 26.07% were resolved with a proxy respondent, such as a neighbor, building manager or landlord; and 18.44% were enumerated using high-quality administrative records. The use of administrative records was new to the 2020 Census, but the proxy rate is comparable to the 2010 Census, in which 24.71% of occupied households in Nonresponse Followup were enumerated by a neighbor or other knowledgeable person. The proportion enumerated by a household member was 74.88% in 2010.”

In other words, 19% fewer NRFU responses were from a knowledgeable person. Could this have had an effect on the unduplication efforts? Maybe. Census reported a few days ago that there were more duplicates this year than in 2010, and they took additional steps to try to resolve them:

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/04/how_we_unduplicated.html

Any other thoughts from those more knowledgeable than me?

[cinyc]

Apologies if someone has already mentioned this, but if there was a significant Hispanic undercount, would it have affected Mexican/Central American Americans more than groups like Cuban Americans?

Most likely.  I bet FL and TX were both undercounted though.  

Good going Republicans!  Making Hispanics afraid to answer the census likely cost you two seats in Congress and 2 electoral votes for a decade.

This is the standard take, but I think it needs more supporting evidence that it currently has, which we’ll only know when we get the redistricting data.

FL and TX only mildly missed their estimates baselines - both by less than a point, depending on the baseline. MN beat its estimates baseline by about 1 point, AL 2 and NY and RI about 4 points. So the real story may be NY and (especially) RI doing much better than expected more than TX and FL lagging. (PR, HI, NJ and VT were among the other major overachievers).

AZ significantly underperformed its baseline estimate, just as it did in 2010. It’s a serial lagger for some reason.

Hmmm... this makes it seem more like an issue with the estimates missing young Millennial/Gen Z urban hipsters than the census itself missing Sunbelt Hispanics?

I think the answer is we don’t know and won’t know until we get the redistricting data or the post-enumeration survey is complete.

[cinyc]

Any ideas why Kansas growth underperformed the other Plains states by so much?  I'm tempted to invoke the oil crash, but even Oklahoma did substantially better than Kansas.

Kansas was always expected to underperform compared to the other Plains states. It actually beat its estimate expectations by 0.8 points or so. NE beat estimate expectations by 1.3 points or so. OK actually slightly missed estimate expectations.

[cinyc]

Apologies if someone has already mentioned this, but if there was a significant Hispanic undercount, would it have affected Mexican/Central American Americans more than groups like Cuban Americans?

Most likely.  I bet FL and TX were both undercounted though.  

Good going Republicans!  Making Hispanics afraid to answer the census likely cost you two seats in Congress and 2 electoral votes for a decade.

This is the standard take, but I think it needs more supporting evidence that it currently has, which we’ll only know when we get the redistricting data.

FL and TX only mildly missed their estimates baselines - both by less than a point, depending on the baseline. MN beat its estimates baseline by about 1 point, AL 2 and NY and RI about 4 points. So the real story may be NY and (especially) RI doing much better than expected more than TX and FL lagging. (PR, HI, NJ and VT were among the other major overachievers).

AZ significantly underperformed its baseline estimate, just as it did in 2010. It’s a serial lagger for some reason.

Hmmm... this makes it seem more like an issue with the estimates missing young Millennial/Gen Z urban hipsters than the census itself missing Sunbelt Hispanics?

I think another variable that should be considered is state spending on Census activities. Here's a mid-2019 CBPP graph on spending for Complete Count committees, and that was just one aspect.


CA, IL, and NY all made large investments and overperformed estimates. AZ, TX and FL provided minimal support and underperformed. CA had shown how well this works back in the 2000 Census and overperformed despite the negative attacks on immigrants the prior decade in the form of Prop 187. I don't have figures on all state-level Census spending which also included community outreach through non-count organizations and local follow up during the pandemic restrictions. If I find them, I may do some correlation analysis.

I’d love to see the spent $ analysis.

From the map, PR didn’t seem to care and had the highest error rate vs population estimates. VT, too.

[cinyc]

One note: I keep on saying PR had the highest error rate. This was based on a Twitter Demographer forward allocating from the 7/1/19 estimates. For some reason, PR wasn’t in the 7/1/20 estimates, according to the demographer. In a publication, Census actually put out a new 4/1/20 estimate. They largely match mine, but not in PR, where the error dropped into the +3s.

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/2021/demo/pop-twps0104.pdf

[cinyc]

One note: I keep on saying PR had the highest error rate. This was based on a Twitter Demographer forward allocating from the 7/1/19 estimates. For some reason, PR wasn’t in the 7/1/20 estimates, according to the demographer. In a publication, Census actually put out a new 4/1/20 estimate. They largely match mine, but not in PR, where the error dropped into the +3s.

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/2021/demo/pop-twps0104.pdf

Yeah, that series (the 2020 population estimates which don't take into account the 2020 census) for Puerto Rico will be released on May 04, along with all the county populations (same series)

I still think Puerto Rico will have a high error rate. After all, New Jersey and New York saw the two highest error rates in the country (as seen below), and they're two states known for large Puerto Rican populations.

It did. Under the 4/1/20 estimates in Census' chart, PR was underestimated by 3.7%. See Table 3 on Page 6 at the link.

[cinyc]

NYer overcount due to COVID?

https://twitter.com/lymanstoneky/status/1387161150522073088

[cinyc]

Here's census' Operational data state spreadsheet:

https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/operational-quality-metrics/census-operational-quality-metrics-release_1.xlsx

FAQs:
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/operational-quality-metrics/operational-quality-metrics-faqs_release-1.pdf

And technical documentation:
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/operational-quality-metrics/operational-quality-metrics-technical-documentation_release-1.pdf

I'm still not entirely sure what all this means, but New York was number 1 in the Unresolved, person unduplication category, which I think means they removed the most duplicates from NYS. NYS was about average in the makeup of NFUR method - 55% interview/27% Proxy/19% Administrative Record. It has the 10th highest percentage of households considered occupied using administrative records, but was 45th in administrative record vacancies.

Edit: now, I realize this is just the underlying data behind the data viz you linked.

[cinyc]

I'm not sure how large of an effect this is, but I think a NY overcount could have something to do with colleges. According to the Census Bureau, college students living on campus should have been counted at their dorms by their colleges, and not included at their family's address. I was included by my family in Utica because I was at home on April 1, which means I was counted twice. I talked to a couple other students I know and they said the same thing.

As of 2018, there were 732,000 full time undergraduate college students studying in New York. That's a lot of potential error.

Census was supposedly working with the colleges to reassign students to their colleges. Whether they successfully did so will really only be known when we see the redistricting file.

[cinyc]

Have checked with a spreadsheet and you are correct.

Who is correct?

[cinyc]

Which states are whining around so far after the results are out ?

I know of NY and Cuomo complaining, but who else ?

I don't see how anyone other than NY could complain.  The next state, Ohio, isn't even close to the number they needed.

I have heard some Democratic politicians complaining about the undercount of hispanics in Arizona, and to a lesser extent Texas, and Florida. 

It's not states who tend to complain; it's usually cities and towns that complain about being undercounted.

[cinyc]

Wait a damn minute, South Carolina could have lost a seat? All the time people in the state brag about having some of the fastest growing areas (Horry, Charleston, Greenville) and we could’ve lost one?

I often analogize Congressional Apportionment to hiking in the woods with friends when you encounter a hungry bear that's out to maul you. You don't have to outrun the bear. You only have to outrun your friends.

It's a little more complicated than that - some of your friends are hiking up front closer to the bear when first encountered, while others are lagging behind.

South Carolina was closer to the bear, relatively speaking, for the reasons Abdullah and jimrtex explained. It eked out a seat the last time, making it closer to losing a seat if growth went bad. So it had to run relatively faster than someone in the back (say, a state that had just barely lost a seat in 2010) to escape. Compared to expectations, it didn't run as well as expected. But it still managed to run to safety because it grew about 3 points faster than the US as a whole.

[cinyc]

This is close to the best case scenario for Dems from this apportionment.  Total control over 26 seats in NY, additional CD in MN forces MN-01 to get more urban, no extra GOP leaning seat in AZ, Texas is an unambiguous plus because they have to concede an Austin seat now anyway and the RGV redraw is harder with bigger seats, even the safe seat in RI stays.  Wow.

Do you think this is an accident? I don't.  I half expected this would happen. RI keeps 2, three-sigma? four-sigma?

AZ not gaining a seat was actually more unlikely than RI keeping 2.

My explanation is NY expats temporarily moving to RI to escape COVID. That would be ironic - especially since Gov. Raimondo didn't want NYers to come in the first place.

[cinyc]

The comment in the story about deduplicating did not make sense. The Census Bureau does not impute actual persons.

Isn't that the point, though - because Census doesn't impute actual persons, they can't be deduplicated. Thus, some people can be counted in 2 places or states.