ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)
- If you’re a census slacker and haven’t yet filled out the form for the
2020 head count, the federal government is trying another way to get in
touch with you.
Starting Wednesday,
the U.S. Census Bureau is mailing out paper forms to 64 million homes whose
residents haven’t yet answered the once-a-decade questionnaire.
Most U.S. residents
started getting notices about a month ago that they could respond online or
by phone. But about 20% of households automatically received a paper
questionnaire, either because their area lacks consistent internet
connectivity or their neighborhood has a high percentage of people over age
65.
Now the rest of the
nation, at least those households that haven’t responded, are getting paper
questionnaires.
About a month into
the start of the 2020 census for most U.S. residents, the self-response rate
is approaching half of all households, with most responding online.
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa and Virginia are setting the
pace with response rates over 50%. But in other states - Alaska, West
Virginia and New Mexico - only between a quarter and a third of households
have responded.
The Census Bureau’s
suspension of field operations between mid-March and mid-April due to the
spread of the new coronavirus may be affecting response rates.
The suspension
included the bureau’s “Update/ Leave” operation in which census takers drop
off questionnaire packets in communities where large numbers of homes don’t
have regular addresses, receive their mail at P.O. boxes or were hit by a
disaster. The lagging states have the largest number of “Update/ Leave”
areas in the country, according to the Center for Urban Research at the City
University of New York.
"We don’t know
definitively why the response rates are so low in places such as West
Virginia, etc., but I think it’s safe to say that a major, if not the major,
reason they’re so low is because Update/Leave has been suspended,” said
Steven Romalewski, director of CUNY Mapping Service at the Center for Urban
Research.
That operation
covers large numbers of poor rural areas and Indian reservations, which
traditionally have been among the hardest communities to count, said Terri
Ann Lowenthal, a consultant on census policy.
The further away
from last week’s Census Day, the April 1 date people are asked to use on the
form when determining where they live, the less accurate the responses tend
to be because people’s memories fade, she added.
“The delay in the
enumeration of those communities could exacerbate those patterns,” Lowenthal
said.
The Census Bureau
says the current national response rate is on track for what was expected.
Because the 2010 census only used paper forms, and the schedule was more
compressed, a side-by-side comparison of response rates from the two decades
is flawed. But almost a month into the 2010 census, about two-thirds of
households had responded.
The 2020 response
rates, so far, vary demographically. As of April 2, neighborhoods whose
residents are predominantly white had the highest average rate at 42.5%,
according to an analysis from CUNY’s Center for Urban Research.
The analysis found
the response rate was 41.8% for predominantly Asian neighborhoods, 35% for
predominantly black neighborhoods and 30.5% for predominantly Hispanic
neighborhoods.
Besides causing the
delay in field operations, the outbreak is keeping advocacy and civic groups
from conducting face-to-face outreach, considered the most effective way of
encouraging participation.
Some outreach
groups are looking to alternative tactics. In the nation’s hardest-hit metro
area, NYC Census 2020 - with help from Brooklyn-based arts and media
institution BRIC - launched an ad last week that links funding for public
services crucial in the crisis, like hospitals and firefighters, to being
counted in the census.
The NALEO
Educational Fund, a Hispanic advocacy group, is doing a half-million-dollar
radio and digital ad buy to encourage participation, and previously planned
town hall meetings are going virtual.
“The current
environment has caused all of us to dramatically change the approach that we
had planned to do,” said Arturo Vargas, CEO of NALEO Educational Fund.
Several advocacy
groups and think tanks are calling for the Census Bureau to extend the
deadline for wrapping up the count - two weeks were added, extending it into
mid-August - and even to postpone the Dec. 31 deadline for handing the final
population numbers to the president as required by law.
The 2020 census
will guide the distribution of some $1.5 trillion in federal spending and
help determine how many congressional seats each state gets in a process
known as apportionment.
“If necessary, it
should be extended. We are in an unprecedented pandemic. People’s health and
safety are paramount,” said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National
Urban League, the civil rights group. “It may delay apportionment but better
to have an accurate census when we do apportionment than one that is
incomplete or half done."