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United States Government Medicine

Coronavirus Disruption Risks Damaging the 2020 United States Census (economist.com) 90

Posted by BeauHD from the census-and-sensibility dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Economist: When the 2020 United States census, scheduled for April 1st, was planned, the areas of most concern were mapped. They include places like Deep East Texas, an area of 10,000 square miles north-east of Houston with a population of roughly 385,000 people. In large parts of the region most people do not have internet access. Many live in places only accessible with four-wheel drives. Counting everybody in Deep East Texas was never going to be easy. Now it looks like it may be near impossible. "The coronavirus has certainly complicated matters," says Lonnie Hunt, the director of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments (detcog), an intergovernmental agency. To help ensure an accurate count, detcog had hired a dozen census coordinators to go out to community events -- sports matches, church services, school sports days -- with information to persuade people to send their returns in, and internet hotspots and iPads with which to do it on the spot. Most of those events are now being cancelled. With people staying indoors, they probably will not encounter any of the workers meant to explain to them the importance of the census and get them to fill it in. The virus may represent the biggest threat to the United States census in its 230-year history.

So far the Census Bureau has only made modest changes. On March 18th the agency announced that all field operations are to be suspended until April 1st. On other surveys officials will make phone calls instead of visits. It has asked administrators of "group quarters" -- institutions like nursing homes, prisons and college dormitories -- to "choose a way to count their residents that requires less in-person contact." But more radical adjustments may be needed. Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former director of the House committee that oversees the census, notes that the count takes ten years to plan, and "yet now the Census Bureau is being forced to make shifts basically on the fly." On March 17th Brazil announced it would delay its census by a year. American officials might have to consider that, too.
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Coronavirus Disruption Risks Damaging the 2020 United States Census More

Coronavirus Disruption Risks Damaging the 2020 United States Census

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  • Fill out the census online:
    https://2020census.gov/en/ways... [2020census.gov]

    "Responding to the Census: The 2020 Census is happening now. You can complete your questionnaire online, by phone, or by mail."

    • This is a non-issue if anyone in Washington had any brains. Fill out the census, get $1000 sent to you. Two birds, one stone.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by aitikin ( 909209 )

        This is a non-issue if anyone in Washington had any brains. Fill out the census, get $1000 sent to you. Two birds, one stone.

        Except the individual's census data can only be used for the census by law. Also, based on that logic, I'd get $1000, but my roommates would not as they did not fill out the census (only one census filled out per household).

      • This is a non-issue if anyone in Washington had any brains. Fill out the census, get $1000 sent to you. Two birds, one stone.

        The level of fraud would be staggering. In a sense it already is as the census counts everyone and apportions out congressional representation even though many of the people responding aren't citizens.

        • Wtf does citizenship have to do with anything? The census has always been based on population, not citizenry.

          • Wtf does citizenship have to do with anything? The census has always been based on population, not citizenry.

            It makes sense to decide representation for citizens based on where the citizens live. Counting residents who may or may not be citizens skews things. In the past the difference between citizens and residents wasn't as large as it is today so the skew is getting larger. Unfair to states that have mostly citizens.

        • Guess you never heard of the Three-Fifths Compromise [wikipedia.org].

    • The problem is a lot of Americans (10% [pewresearch.org]?), particularly rural Americans, don't have access to or don't use the internet. That's around 33 million Americans.

    • What I found to be the problem with the online portion is that it, like other online surveys, forces you to answer and not skip anything. I typically only answer the "number of people in my household or living at my home" question. This is what the census is for, and the information needed to determine how many representatives my state needs.

      questions relating to the name/age/sex, household income, ethnicity, whether we own or rent the property and other questions are none of their damn business and I

  • ROTFL...."damaging" the census?

    even the clickbait has gone to crap during the coronavirus scare.

  • Already done online.... no reason for it to be disrupted if people just follow simple instructions

    • Already done online.... no reason for it to be disrupted if people just follow simple instructions

      Sure, but that assumes you get the letter from the Census Bureau with your OTP to fill out the questionnaire online.

      But we know a lot of people aren't counted, or are undercounted, and the bureau sends people out in the field to count in areas and neighborhoods where people traditionally are undercounted.

      The Census isn't a count of citizens. It's a count of people, whether they're citizens or not. (And we know that nobody has an agenda that would be served by undercounting certain classes of people, r

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsuliga ( 553869 )

        You do not need the letter. If you go to the census site they allow people like me who have not received the letter to still fill out the census online. When I finished they said if I do get the letter to just ignore it as I am good to go.

      • "count of people, whether they're citizens or not."

        I live near a state university and during the 1990's the city had a video on public access about the census. They made it clear international students were required by federal law to take part. If they refused the city would have no choice but for charges to be filed.

        This angered a lot of people. So much so that a petition was signed stating if the census was so important then they need to require the homeless to be counted as well. That means sending peopl

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          That's weird, here (Canada), they try pretty hard to count the homeless and legally it is required to fill it out.

          • In the U.S. many colleges refuse to acknowledge there are homeless. Because they believe it deters recruiting. Same goes for the crime statistics. Which are always skewed to make them look lower than they really are.

        • So much so that a petition was signed stating if the census was so important then they need to require the homeless to be counted as well. That means sending people out to look for them.

          Just noting that the homeless *are* required to be counted and they *do* sent people out to count them. This was covered last week on an NPR interview with the head of the Census. No petition needed.

          • As I stated above this was back in the 1990's. When counting homeless consisted of...

            "Did you see anyone while you were going door to door?"
            "No."
            "Then I guess there aren't any homeless."
            "There was one person who has a backpack, a duffel bag, and a large bag of cans."
            "Probably a college student who's taking back last nights party leftovers and then's going to the gym. Nope, no homeless."
            "He met up and talked with two others outside the grocery store."
            "Probably same intramural team. Nope, no homeless."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Burdell ( 228580 )

      Well, you can't read the summary at the top of a Slashdot page, so why you think others can "follow simple instructions" is a mystery.

    • Same. Took less than five minutes.

    • But not everyone has internet access. If they get mail they can still do the census, but if they are really out there, possibly in the high country, and they won't be out until June, things do get more complicated.

      And then there is Mother, who has internet access, but won't use it. The only person I still send snail-mail to. It's definitely the post office form for her.

  • Just start over (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Friday March 20, 2020 @10:03AM (#59852838)

    By the time coronavirus is contained, they'd probably have to do it again to get a new accurate count of the (remaining) population.

    • Just wait 9 months and the small baby boom from everyone being stuck home will cancel out the deaths.

      • The pandemic is likely going to wreck the global economy, healthcare, supply chains, trade etc for years to come. I don't thing there is going to be a population boom because of the lock down.

    • "No! No take backs! No take backs! I called it! I did! You just weren't there!"

    • It should be delayed until next year. It won't be, because the census is a political tool and the party which controls the census can use it to their own ends, but it should be delayed until next year.
  • ...so I can answer my survey online instead of sending in a possibly contaminated envelope.

  • ...we had a large earthquake in NZ that did the same thing.

  • Yeah (Score:2)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    Good point. They should hurry up and get that all wrapped up before everyone dies.

  • It took about five minutes. The biggest threat to the census is not Covid-19, but belief in bullshit conspiracy theories.

  • While it's certainly important to update the census, it's not life-threateningly critical: just punt the census 2 years down the road.

    So states and programs continue with their same allocations as they did for the last decade, it's unlikely to be wildly different anyway.

    If it's important to people's sensibilities that it be on the decades, make the next one only 8 years later.

    How is this so fucking complicated?

  • Since the 1970's I have known citizens who were not interested in submitting their information for the census, and they did\do not. The total number of such individuals I know\have known has increased exponentioally over the years. The percentage of each race to the total of U.S. citizens, as reported by the census, in my experience, has NEVER been correct since the 1980s. my .02

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