Down to the Wire

U.S. Census Bureau

Editor's note: There are two conflicting threads of news about the 2020 Census in America. As discussed in earlier articles here, COVID delayed the start of counting, with the conclusion of field work shifted from late July to the end of September. An attempt to move the end of field work to October 31 was tied to a broader attempt to delay the first of two reports (the one declaring the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representives for each state) from the legal deadline of December 31 to April 30. This would require an act of Congress, which did not happen, but that than politized the situation even more. As the two reports from the Census Bureau released today indicate, enumeration has exceeded 99% of households, but a court order has extended the conclusion of counting to October 31 (beyond the October 5 extension already announced by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross a week ago). The legal deadline for the first report remains December 31.

Nearly Done—enumeration exceeds 99%

OCT. 2, 2020 Press Release—Over 99% of housing units have been accounted for in the 2020 Census as of today, with 32.5% counted by census takers and other field data collection operations, and 66.6% of housing units responding online, by phone or by mail.

Every day, the U.S. Census Bureau releases the 2020 Census housing unit completion rate for the nation, all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. In addition, the Census Bureau releases the completion rates for the Nonresponse Followup operation by area census office.

The Census Bureau is committed to a complete and accurate count, and urges every household to respond when a census taker visits or to respond on their own by using their census ID online, by phone or by mail.

Visit 2020census.gov to respond now and for more details.

Editor's note: 24 states are reported at 99.7% or better. My own state of Illinoi is at 99.6% of its roughly 5.4-million housing units, leaving some 22,000 housing units uncounted. The bottom six states run from Georgia at 97.3% to Alabana at 95.5%.

The Court Order—extending the count to October 31

OCT. 2, 2020 Press Release—On October 2, 2020, the message below was sent to census takers working on the 2020 Census:

“As a result of court orders, the October 5, 2020 target date is not operative, and data collection operations will continue through October 31, 2020. Employees should continue to work diligently and enumerate as many people as possible. Contact your supervisor with any questions.”

Links to the orders from September 24 and October 1 were provided to employees as well.

The U.S. Census Bureau is currently updating 2020Census.gov and Census.gov and all external and internal guidance to ensure compliance with the orders.