Aug. 11, 2020 updates for the Census 2020 Hard to Count/Response Rate map

2020 Census Self-Response Analysis Leading into Door-Knocking Follow-Up; 8 Million More Homes Need to be Visited Compared with 2010 in a Shorter Timeframe

The Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) presented its last formal review of 2020 Census self-response rates on Friday, as the Census Bureau begins its door-knocking (i.e., Nonresponse Followup / NRFU) operation to enumerate people in households who have not filled out the census form on their own.

We have also updated our HTC/Response Rate map with information to help guide census stakeholders as they continue their Get Out the Count efforts during NRFU - more details below.

Self-Response Transitioning to NRFU

Our Friday presentation is available online, covering self-response rate trends through August 6. It caps a review of 20 weeks of self-response for the 2020 Census (a timeframe almost 3 months longer than originally scheduled, extended by the Census Bureau in response to the COVID-19 crisis). Our presentations over those 20 weeks focused especially on self-response rates in communities with historically undercounted populations.

A link to each presentation, prepared in collaboration with the Census Counts 2020 coalition and the Funders Census Initiative, is available here. The slide below from Friday's presentation shows state-by-state response rate trends over the course of the 20 weeks.

In Friday's review we addressed the Census Bureau's announcement to truncate the enumeration timeframe by 4 weeks (ending Sept. 30 instead of Oct. 31). It will be challenging enough during the coronavirus pandemic to knock on doors and count people in person. But now the Bureau will need to do more counting in less time: Census Bureau estimates show that enumerators will need to visit 8 million more homes nationwide than in 2010, in 6 weeks instead of 10:

• In 2010 according to the Census Bureau, just over 48 million housing units were assigned to NRFU census takers for in-person visits (see pages 16-17 of the Bureau's 2010 NRFU assessment). In 2020 the Bureau estimates that 56 million units will need to be visited in person.
• Historically the risks of missing people or counting them inaccurately increases during NRFU compared with self-response; the shortened 2020 timeframe with a greater workload intensifies that risk.
• In our previous email update about the HTC map, we explained how you can use the map to see how far behind each tract, county, state, or district is from its 2010 response rate, visualizing how much additional NRFU effort will be needed compared with the prior census. These nationwide NRFU "workload" statistics provide context for the local mapped patterns.

Census tracts with the lowest self-response rates will require more door-knocking than tracts with higher rates, assuming the same number of housing units. We examined the demographic characteristics of the tracts nationwide with response rates in the bottom fifth (as of Aug 6, tracts with rates below 51.3%). We found that:

• People of color, people with incomes below poverty, and foreign born residents tend to make up a greater share of the population in these tracts than in the overall population and in tracts with higher response rates.
• Therefore, these low-response communities with greater shares of historically undercounted groups will see more door-knocking than higher-response-rate tracts with a greater share of people who are white, higher income, or native born. The door-knocking effort — especially with a shortened timeframe — could again exacerbate concerns about undercounts for these groups.

Despite the risks, one benefit of NRFU is that it can actually help increase self-response rates, even though the formal self-response operation is over. For example, if an enumerator visits a home but is unable to talk with the residents, the census taker will leave a "notice of visit" with information on how to self-respond. People will still have the opportunity to self-respond through Sept. 30, and the Census Bureau estimates that self-response during NRFU could reduce the number of homes needing in-person visits by as much as 9.7% (see Table 2, page 16 of the Bureau's 2020 NRFU Plan).

The Census Bureau began NRFU in selected areas ahead of the nationwide NRFU launch this week. We found that self-response rate increases in these areas during NRFU were greater than increases elsewhere in the country. The tables below show 1-week response rate increases for the 12 areas where NRFU began first, compared with average tract-level rate increases elsewhere. In several areas where NRFU started either on July 16 or July 23 (such as Idaho, Missouri, Virginia, & Connecticut), rates increased by twice as much as rates outside these areas. (Rate increases highlighted in green below are greater than the overall rate increase outside the early NRFU areas.)

HTC map updates during NRFU

In order to see how much self-response rates are increasing now that NRFU has begun nationwide, the HTC/Response Rate map now displays this information for each tract, county, city, state and nationwide (and soon will show this data for tribal areas and legislative districts).

For example, Pierce County, WA is part of the Tacoma Area Census Office, where NRFU began on July 23. The map image below shows that on July 23 the county's response rate was 67.8% (which already exceeded its 2010 rate). The increased by 2 percentage points between then and now.

The map also highlights the nationwide response rate in the same way:

Importantly, the Census Bureau has agreed to publish self-response rate updates every weekday through Sept. 30 (the Bureau's earlier plan was to cease weekday updates after Sept. 11 and only publish rate updates every Monday). This increased frequency will enable stakeholders to track the impact of Get Out The Count efforts that take place throughout the NRFU operation.

NB: self-response rates only measure the share of households that fill out the census form on their own. The response rates on the HTC map do not reflect households enumerated in-person via NRFU. If the Census Bureau publishes NRFU "completion" rates, we will incorporate this information into the map.

Links to earlier updates

Make sure to follow us on Twitter at @Census2020Map !

The HTC 2020 map is a work in progress. Other recent updates and enhancements are described here:

• August 5, 2020: Online maps pinpoint areas at greatest risk of a rushed 2020 Census.
• July 24, 2020: Door-knocking enumeration begins in selected areas; our map shows where and what to expect. Also updates on latest response rate analysis & recent online census self-response highlights.
• July 15, 2020: New "Data Trends" feature added to the mapping site, with dynamic trendlines & animated map of response rate trajectories. Estimated response rates by state legislative district also added to the map.
• June 25, 2020: Dynamic new metric to tract response rates at the tract, city, & county levels. Examples of other resources analyzing the latest 2020 Census self-response rates, and our latest analysis of the nation's response rate trends.
• May 27, 2020: Update/Leave operations have resumed in 42 states & Puerto Rico; rates are increasing slowly nationwide but bright spots highlight importance of census outreach to continue to boost response; tracts with lowest response rates are very different than tracts with highest rates.
• May 14, 2020: New map search feature for Area Census Offices (where the Update/Leave operation is resuming), our latest self-response rate analysis (Week7), & links to other projects analyzing self-response rates.
• May 6, 2020: News about where the Update/Leave operation is resuming, and our latest self-response rate analyses (Weeks 4, 5, & 6).
• April 13, 2020: Week 3 Response Rate Analysis; Trendlines Added to the Map.
• April 7, 2020: Week 2 Response Rate analysis; Tribal Lands added to the map.
• April 3, 2020: Census 2020 HTC map news: "Census Day" Self-Response Bump; Data Q&A.
• March 31, 2020: Week 1 Response Rate analysis.
• March 23, 2020: Update on mapping self-response rates, with emphasis on the 2020 progress bar that fills in daily after the latest rates are published, easy share/embed options for your map, and some notes on the data.
• March 19 2020: In a joint statement with our colleagues at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR), we highlighted the importance of a fair and accurate 2020 Census as the coronavirus challenges grow, and lifted up the resources available at our HTC 2020 map to help inspire Americans to fill out the 2020 Census form on their own. Self-responding helps ensure that the Census Bureau collects reliable data about the nation's population. And self-responding is a way to practice social distancing because it avoids a knock at your door later on from a census taker.
• March 2020: The HTC map is now focused on census self-response rates. All the former info at the map is still there. But now that census mailings are going out, the map has been updated to reflect 2010 response rates in anticipation of integrating 2020 real-time rates after March 20. NB: the map not only displays response rates for each state, county, and tract, but also include a bar chart in the map's left-hand panel that shows the 2010 rate (and 2000, for historical context) for now. The 2020 column in the bar chart is empty, but it will start to go up after March 20. How quickly and how far it rises depends on local census stakeholders!
• February 2020: New data on the risk of undercounting young children, in collaboration with the Population Reference Bureau. For more info, visit PRB's website.
• January 2020: To help promote the official start of the 2020 Census in Alaska, we added a special "It Starts Here" (in Toksook Bay, AK) graphic on the map. Updates in January also included new 2014-2018 population estimates for tracts, counties, states, legislative districts, and more.
• December 2019: New advanced tract search feature, statewide maps of Census Bureau contact strategies, and more.
• November 2019: Comprehensive information for all 2020 Census contact techniques combined in one place at the HTC 2020 map, so census stakeholders can more easily inform local residents about what to expect when the 2020 decennial census takes place. Also see the CUNY Center for Urban Research website for a state-by-state analysis.
• October 2019: Updates to TEA designations; the latest examples of groups using the HTC map across the country; enhancing the HTC metrics with the Census Bureau's "low response score", the Urban Institute's projections of undercount by state; & more.
• August 2019: In-Field Address Canvassing areas & stats on the map; organizations that are using the HTC map for local grant assistance; new examples of linking to and/or embedding the HTC map.
• July 2019: new feature to highlight tracts based on share of households without internet access; a list of other census maps nationwide, and more.
• June 2019: Census contacts by state/county; census tract search feature.
• April 2019: customized printing, data downloads, and more.
• March 2019: mapping Type of Enumeration Areas (TEA) and Area Census Offices (ACOs)
• January 2019: new ACS data for the 2013-17 period (including internet access), new legislative info, public library locations, and tribal lands added to the map.

If you haven't signed up for our HTC 2020 map updates, please do so here.

We look forward to hearing your suggestions for improving the map. Please contact the Mapping Service at the CUNY Graduate Center with your feedback.

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