CA Census Undercount Could Leave Billions On The Table

CALIFORNIA — As we pass the halfway point for taking this year’s census, nearly two out of every five U.S. households have yet to respond to the survey, stoking fears that billions of federal dollars could be left on the table — dollars that fund crucial services including during the pandemic.

The new coronavirus erupted just as the 2020 census was getting underway. In the wake of mass layoffs and unprecedented economic damage, studies are projecting that more than 4 million people could be undercounted this year.

U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, a Democrat from New York City who represents one of the most diverse districts in the nation, is also anticipating an undercount, leaving her fearful for communities.

“Any mistake or inaccurate count we make becomes a 10-year mistake and affects our neighborhoods and communities for a very long time,” Meng told The Associated Press this week.

The purpose of the once-each-decade count is to help determine where $1.5 trillion in federal funding goes and how many congressional seats each state gets.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s self-response map, 62.6 percent of California households have responded to this year’s census either online, by phone or by mail.

Nationally, about 61.6 percent of households have responded.

This means two out of every five households are still unaccounted for.

Should these households not respond, billions of dollars that fund crucial services before, during and after the coronavirus pandemic will be lost. Services include hospitals, Head Start programs, school lunches and summer lunch programs, Medicaid, food stamps and dozens more.

Historically, people of color, children, senior citizens, undocumented immigrants, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community, Native Americans in tribal areas, the homeless and low-income people are among the least likely to be counted accurately in the census.

Both the National Urban League and the NALEO Educational Fund have sounded the alarm that communities with large concentrations of black and Hispanic residents are trailing the rest of the nation in answering the 2020 questionnaire, AP reported.

A more detailed analysis of response rates in late May and early June conducted by the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center showed that neighborhoods with concentrations of black residents had a self-response rate of 51 percent, compared with 53.8 percent for Hispanic-concentrated neighborhoods and 65.5 percent for white-dominant neighborhoods.

These populations are also among the hardest hit by the pandemic.

Young people and low-income workers are bearing the brunt of coronavirus-related layoffs, according to one study. So are women and people of color, Department of Labor data says.

This is causing outreach challenges for both the Census Bureau and organizations providing services to impacted communities.

The Census Bureau suspended field operations in March, pulling workers off the streets to protect them from the virus. This also included efforts to drop off census forms at households in rural areas with no traditional addresses.

Workers didn’t return until May 4 as part of a phased restart.

The Census Bureau told the Associated Press on Thursday that it had finished dropping off questionnaire forms to almost all of the 6.8 million mostly rural households.

Organizations throughout the country have also put in-person outreach on hold. Plans to set up booths at farmers markets and work with child care centers have been abandoned, replaced by digital advertising, social media and telephone calls.

Fadia Mohama, census director for Commonpoint Queens in New York, told NBC News the organization previously got 300 people to fill out the government survey in a single day. Last month, it was lucky to get 50 to watch a webinar.

"I want to be positive and say that we are getting through to the community," Mohama told NBC News. “A lot of people that we've talked to have said that now is not a good time because their family member is sick or they have just lost their job.”

Because of the pandemic, the bureau pushed back the deadline for finishing the 2020 census from the end of July to the end of October, and it asked Congress for a delay in handing over apportionment and redistricting numbers.

Census officials have encouraged Americans to respond to the decennial survey online, a first for the census.

In a move designed to cut costs and keep up with digital lifestyles, the census questionnaire is available at my2020census.gov. Americans can access the online questionnaire by using a 12-digit ID code included with their census invitation sent by mail.

The 2020 census counts everyone living in the United States and its five territories. Learn more about how to respond to this year’s census.