Each month the Census Counts team compiles Census-related news from a wide swath of national and regional media outlets to keep data equity stakeholders informed and engaged.
As always, you can find earlier clips here.
May 28, 2024 Census Coalition Clips
National
AP News | News Armenians, Hmong and other groups feel US race and ethnicity categories don’t represent them
The federal government recently reclassified race and ethnicity groups in an effort to better capture the diversity of the United States, but some groups feel the changes miss the mark. Hmong, Armenian, Black Arab and Brazilian communities in the U.S. say they are not represented accurately in the official numbers. While the revisions were widely applauded, these communities say the changes have created a tension between how the federal government classifies them versus how they identify themselves. The groups say money, political power and even health could be at stake. Being lumped into the wrong column can mean a gain or loss of government funds that are distributed based on data. For some, it’s about their identity and feeling seen by their own country.
Terry Tang and Mike Schneider | May 27, 2024
Taiwan FactCheck Center | News “The American government is coming for you!” -The Chinese disinformation surrounding the U.S. federal data disaggregation policy
On March 28, 2024, the U.S. White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a document detailing revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, which specifies the standards for “maintaining, collecting, and presenting federal data on race and ethnicity.” Soon after the publication of the document, false information circulated in Chinese-speaking communities—not just in the U.S. but also in China, Taiwan, and Asian countries with a significant portion of Chinese descendants. Those who published or shared false information regarding the revised policy warned: “The American government is now coming for Chinese immigrants like what they did to the Japanese during World War II!”
Wei-Ping Li, PhD | May 27, 2024
India Post | News Disaggregating data key to closing Health Disparities
For the first time since 1997, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expanded its race and ethnicity standards to capture historically excluded communities who will now be visible in federal data collection. In the first of three briefings on health inequities sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, experts and advocates will explore how better data collection will help direct resources and interventions where they are needed most, especially to communities facing the greatest health challenges.
Vidya Sethuraman | May 23, 2024
States
California
ColoradoBoulevard.net | News L.A. County Will Make Sure All Communities Are Counted
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today unanimously approved a motion to direct the Executive Director of Racial Equity and all 38 County department heads to conduct a comprehensive review of their demographic data collection processes to improve accuracy and inclusivity and ensure compliance with revised federal standards. The joint motion by Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, who represents the First District, and Chair Lindsey P. Horvath, who represents the Third District, directs the Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiative, in collaboration with the Chief Information Office and all County departments, to review their collection of race, ethnicity, and cultural data to ensure they fully capture the diversity of the County’s population.
News Desk | May 22, 2024
Los Angeles Times | News Why having accessible data is important. Here’s how we dived into statistics to understand AAPI communities in Southern California
The arrival of Asian/Pacific Heritage Month in May led two Times data journalists to consider an unusual demographic pattern sometimes taken for granted by those who have lived in Southern California for a long period of time: the region’s massive community of people who trace their roots back to Asia and the Pacific Islands. Los Angeles neighborhoods, like those in the San Gabriel Valley, may be nationally known for their large Asian populations, but what’s less known is just how big they are — and that “the 626” is far from the only large AAPI community in the region. Times data journalists turned to Census data to begin to quantify the size and ethnic diversity of the group that has become the fastest-growing demographic in the United States.
Sandhya Kambhampati, Aida Ylanan | May 16, 2024
Minnesota
AP News | News Minnesota joins growing list of states counting inmates at home instead of prisons for redistricting
Minnesota has joined a growing list of states that plan to count prisoners at their home addresses instead of at the prisons they’re located when drawing new political districts. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz last week signed legislation that says last known addresses will be used for counting inmates, not the federal or state correctional facilities where they are housed. Prisoners whose last address is out of state or whose address is unknown would be excluded from the redistricting process, though they would be counted as part of Minnesota’s population total, according to the new law signed by the Democratic governor.
AP News | May 23, 2024
New York
City & State New York | News Advocates rally for MENA bill as NY session winds down
There is a renewed push to get legislation that would disaggregate data on Middle Eastern and North African New Yorkers across the finish line before the end of session in an attempt to better serve those communities, which are typically classified as “white” by the state. Communities mentioned in the bill include, but are not limited to Egyptian, Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, and Libyan in Northern Africa, and Yemeni, Iranian, Palestinian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Israeli, Syrian, Armenian, and Saudi in the Middle East. Mamdani added that once MENA communities are given recognition, then it would be possible to address issues around discrimination and disparities in state and social support.
Austin C. Jefferson | May 21, 2024
Blog Posts and Reports
U.S. Census Bureau | Press Release Census Bureau Releases Community Resilience Estimates for Puerto Rico
The U.S. Census Bureau today released the Community Resilience Estimates (CRE) for Puerto Rico, including 2021 and 2022 estimates and a new equity supplement, which merges the CRE for Puerto Rico variables with data from the Puerto Rico Community Survey (PRCS) 5-year estimates and 2020 Census. The CRE for Puerto Rico comes with an easy-to-use interactive mapping tool and profiles visualization at the commonwealth, municipio and census tract geographic levels to provide users with an easy-to-use interface to quickly access key community statistics about social vulnerability and equity in Puerto Rico.
Kristina Barrett | May 23, 2024
May 20, 2024 Census Coalition Clips
National
Boston Globe | News What it means to be Asian in America
The movement to disaggregate data is not entirely new. Americans who identify as Black or Latino have advocated against the monolithic view for decades. While common experiences have helped boost national-level policies, different subgroups face different challenges, whether it’s because of when and how they immigrated to the United States, where they chose to live, or what local laws have impacted them. These different experiences result in not only different outcomes but also different viewpoints on a variety of issues. That’s why the recent revisions to Directive 15 of the Office of Management and Budget are noteworthy. It updates standards for federal agencies to allow for more detailed reporting of ethnicities. However, this change is limited to federal agencies, when in reality state and local governments, colleges and universities, and even workplaces should be adopting this.
David Dam | May 20, 2024
Georgetown Center for Children and Families | News Research Update: New Data Show 2020 Census Undercounted Young Children in Every State and Most Counties
New data published by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that young children ages 0-4 were undercounted in the 2020 Census in every state and in more than four out of five counties examined. The Census Bureau previously found that young children were undercounted by 5.46% nationwide — a larger undercount than for any other age group and a worse undercount than in any decennial Census going back to 1970. After each decennial Census, the Census Bureau produces Demographic Analysis (DA) estimates that use administrative data like birth, death, and migration records to produce independent national estimates of the population in order to estimate “net coverage error,” which is a measure of whether there was an undercount or an overcount.
Aubrianna Osorio | May 15, 2024
Bay Area Reporter | News Census eyes August start for LGBTQ questions test
The U.S. Census Bureau is eyeing an August start date for testing sexual orientation and gender identity questions on its American Community Survey. It first must await sign off to do so from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. OMB officials won’t make a determination until after the public comment period ends later this month about the planned summer rollout for testing the SOGI questions. Due to President Joe Biden issuing a directive to see better federal collection of LGBTQ demographic data two years ago during Pride Month in June, it is widely expected the presidential office will give its assent by early July.
Matthew S. Bajko | May 15, 2024
The 19th | News Federal documents don’t provide enough checkboxes for all AAPI ethnicities. That may be about to change.
The Asian American and Pacific Islander community is the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, growing over four times faster than the total population. Despite this tremendous growth, it is one of the most understudied racial groups in the country, both in terms of government data collection and private polling. Many polls and surveys provide only one checkbox to represent all Asian-American people, even though more than 20 different Asian ethnic groups live in the United States. And this has wide-ranging consequences for everything from medicine to voting patterns.
Mariel Padilla | May 6, 2024
States
California
East County Magazine | News Middle Eastern or North African (MENA)
Arab-Americans have long been excluded from being counted on government forms, from the U.S. census to state and county documents. But that’s changing here in San Diego County, which has one of the state’s largest populations of people of Middle Eastern or North African descent. By a unanimous vote, San Diego County Supervisors on May 1 became the first jurisdiction in California to approve creating a “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA) category on County forms for individuals to self-identify as MENA.
Mariam Raftery | May 16, 2024
Georgia
WSBTV | News Atlanta claims spot as 6th highest population increase in the US, data shows
Only five large cities in the state of Georgia saw their populations increase between July 2022 and July 2023. A new report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that Atlanta, the most populated city in the state, was one of the few major cities or towns to gain more residents. Among the largest cities in the United States, Atlanta had the sixth highest population increase by number, but was actually only No. 2 for Georgia’s population increases by proportion. As a state, Georgia had an overall 1.1% population increase. While Atlanta, and nearby Marietta saw increases, multiple metro area cities actually saw their number of residents shrink.
Sam Sachs | May 17, 2024
Michigan
AP News | News Census Bureau estimates: Detroit population rises after decades of decline, South dominates growth
America’s Northeast and Midwest cities are rebounding slightly from years of population drops — especially Detroit, which grew for the first time in decades — though the South still dominates the nation’s growth, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Thursday. Detroit, Michigan’s largest city, had seen an exodus of people since the 1950s. Yet the estimates released Thursday show Detroit’s population rose by just 1,852 people from 631,366 in 2022 to 633,218 last year. It’s a milestone for Detroit, which had 1.8 million residents in the 1950s only to see its population dwindle and then plummet through suburban white flight, a 1967 race riot, the migration to the suburbs by many of the Black middle class and the national economic downturn that foreshadowed the city’s 2013 bankruptcy filing.
Corey Williams and Mike Schneider | May 16, 2024
Axios Detroit | News Detroit wants decision in population case against Census Bureau
City attorneys argue the Census Bureau treating the demolition of vacant residential structures as evidence of population loss for the purpose of estimating Detroit’s population violates the Administrative Procedure Act. Census figures are used to determine federal funding, and increasing the city’s tax base has been part of Mayor Mike Duggan’s plans since he became mayor a decade ago when the population was recorded at more than 720,000 people.
Samuel Robinson | May 15, 2024
New York
The Washington Post | News People aren’t leaving New York because of Trump
New York is made up of five boroughs, each its own county. Since 2020, the population of all five has declined, according to the Census Bureau. Brooklyn lost the most people, nearly 160,000; Staten Island, also the least populous borough, lost the fewest. Manhattan lost population from 2020 to 2021, probably because of the pandemic, but has added people since. You will notice that this trend ends in 2023, the most recent year for which data are available. It is also in keeping with drops in other cities. On Thursday, the Census Bureau released new estimates of city populations for 2023, showing that while some places in areas that have seen big population loss in recent years — including the Midwest and Northeast — saw small rebounds (like in Manhattan), the biggest gains have been in the South, particularly Texas.
Philip Bump | May 17, 2024
Washington
The Seattle Times | News We’re No. 13? That’s fine, Seattle wasn’t good at being No. 1
The big news this past week that Seattle is no longer the fastest-growing city in the nation was generally treated like that’s a bad thing. The word “anemic” was used. Also, the word “suffer,” as if the city were ill. “Seattle’s population growth suffered a bit of a bump in the boom,” was how the tech news site GeekWire phrased it. When it comes to growth, what Seattle ruefully learned in the 2010s is: You don’t necessarily want to be first. You don’t want to be last, either. It’s rather that Seattle finds itself in an unusual spot. For the first time in ages, we are neither boom nor bust. Seattle has instead made a steady, restrained recovery from the pandemic, one that is unique among West Coast cities.
Danny Westneat | May 18, 2024
Blog Posts and Reports
U.S. Census Bureau | Press Release Population Rebounds for Many Cities in Northeast and Midwest
Large cities in the Northeast and Midwest grew in 2023, reversing earlier population declines, according to Vintage 2023 Population Estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Cities with populations of 50,000 or more grew by an average of 0.2% in the Northeast and 0.1% in the Midwest after declining an average of 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively, in 2022. Those in the West went up by an average of 0.2% from 2022 to 2023. Cities in the South grew the fastest – by an average 1.0%. Amid these notable examples of growth in the South, other fast-growing cities saw their rates of population change slow.
Kristina Barrett | May 16, 2024
U.S. Census Bureau | Press Release New Data on Public Employment and Payroll Now Available
The U.S. Census Bureau today released a new summary report and data tables for the 2023 Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll. These statistics provide a comprehensive look at the employment of the nation’s state and local governments. The survey provides state and local government data on full- and part-time employment, full-time equivalent employment, and gross monthly payroll for March 2023 statistics by governmental function. Federal, state and local governments, and education and research organizations use public employment and payroll data for comparative studies and activities such as development of the government component of the gross domestic product (GDP). The release also includes an individual unit file containing all data items by data code within the survey.
Jewel Jordan | May 16, 2024
Mondaq | Podcast Dimensions Of Diversity: The Effect Of Census Information On Development And Policy With Meeta Anand (Podcast)
On this episode of Dimensions of Diversity, Lloyd Freeman speaks with Meeta Anand, Senior Director of Census and Data Equity for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. The discussion highlights how the U.S. government is changing how it categorizes people by their race and ethnicity. This includes new options for the first time since 1977 under the question of “What is your race and/or ethnicity?” New categories include “Middle Eastern or North African” (also known as MENA) and “Hispanic or Latino.” Meeta says these changes will achieve more accurate representation of the population as a whole.
Lloyd Freeman | May 14, 2024
May 13, 2024 Census Coalition Clips
National
The Census Project | News Lawsuit Against 2020 Census Gets Appeals Court Hearing
On April 11, 2024, oral arguments were heard in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for an appeal in the case of Citizens for Const. Integrity v. Census Bureau. The original 2021 lawsuit challenged “the Bureau’s apportionment of congressional representatives following the 2020 Decennial Census as violating the 14th Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act.”
May 13, 2024
The Patriot Post | News A Bill to Ensure Fair Representation for American Citizens
The House of Representatives finally acted Wednesday to remedy an injustice that has been getting worse as the number of illegal aliens coming into the United States has skyrocketed: the distortion caused by including noncitizens when determining how many House members each state gets. The House passed HR 7109, the Equal Representation Act, to mandate a citizenship question on the census form and use of only the citizen population in the apportionment formula for representation applied after every census. Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates an “actual Enumeration” of the U.S. population every 10 years. That enumeration is used to determine the number of members in the House to which each state is entitled. Because Congress limited the size of the House to 435 members in 1929 by passing the Permanent Apportionment Act, those 435 representatives are divided among the states. Reapportionment after the 2020 census gave additional seats to six states: Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, and Texas. It also reduced the number of seats held by seven states: California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
Hans Von Spakovsky |May 11, 2024
AP | News Republicans renew push to exclude noncitizens from the census that helps determine political power
Some Republicans in Congress are pushing to require a citizenship question on the questionnaire for the once-a-decade census and exclude people who aren’t citizens from the count that helps determine political power in the United States. The GOP-led House on Wednesday passed a bill that would eliminate noncitizens from the tally gathered during a census and used to decide how many House seats and Electoral College votes each state gets. The bill is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, the White House opposes it and there are legal questions because the Constitution says all people should be counted during the apportionment process. But the proposal has set off alarms among redistricting experts, civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers as a reprise of efforts by the Trump administration to place limits that would dramatically alter the dynamics of the census, which plays a foundational role in the distribution of political power and federal funding.
Mike Schneider | May 8, 2024
Buchanan | Podcast Dimensions of Diversity: The Effect of Census Information on Development and Policy with Meeta Anand
On this episode of Dimensions of Diversity, Lloyd Freeman speaks with Meeta Anand, Senior Director of Census and Data Equity for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
The discussion highlights how the U.S. government is changing how it categorizes people by their race and ethnicity. This includes new options for the first time since 1977 under the question of “What is your race and/or ethnicity?” New categories include “Middle Eastern or North African” (also known as MENA) and “Hispanic or Latino.” Meeta says these changes will achieve more accurate representation of the population as a whole. Later, Meeta explains how data from the annual American Community Survey is providing local and national leaders with the information they need to develop better programs, greater economic development, improved emergency management, and a deeper focus on local issues and conditions.
Lloyd Freeman | May 8, 2024
States
Utah
KSL | News Young voters in Utah underrepresented in 2022 midterms, census report finds
Despite being the youngest state in the nation by median age, young voters were underrepresented in Utah during the 2022 midterm elections, according to a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The report, which the bureau conducts after each national election, examines the voting-age population in each state, and found Utah has the largest share of adults, 25.5%, between the ages of 18 and 29. The District of Columbia has the second-largest share of young adults, with 25.1%. But in Utah, young people between the ages of 18 and 29 accounted for just about 12% of the voters in 2022, meaning young voters in the state were underrepresented by 13.9% — the biggest gap in the nation, by far. “This is, in part, discouraging, because we’re seeing, nationally, more and more young people are voting,” said Morgan Lyon Cotti, associate director of the University of Utah Hinckley Institute of Politics. “They’re voting at higher rates at this young age than previous generations. But in Utah, we see this huge gap between those who are of age and those who are voting.” The most obvious culprit for the gap in representation is that a significant share of young adults who permanently reside in the Beehive State spend 18 months to two years on proselytizing missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to Cotti.
Bridger Beal-Cvetko | May 12, 2024
North Dakota
AP | News Voting Rights Act weighs heavily in North Dakota’s attempt to revisit redistricting decision it won
Months after it won a lawsuit over legislative boundaries, North Dakota is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its victory, baffling others involved in the state’s redistricting fights and prompting some legal experts to call the state’s action a potential assault on the Voting Rights Act. At issue is a ruling by a federal panel over a lawsuit filed by Republicans challenging the constitutionality of a redistricting map that created House subdistricts encompassing two American Indian reservations. Proponents of the subdistricts said they gave tribal nations better chances to elect their own members. Last fall, a federal three-judge panel tossed out the lawsuit at the request of the state and the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation. The judges wrote that “assuming without deciding” that race was the main factor for the subdistricts, “the State had good reasons and strong evidence to believe the subdistricts were required by the VRA.”
The plaintiffs appealed.
Jack Dura | May 9, 2024
Blog Posts and Reports
CPI | Blog Cut off from our past, Chinese American adoptees seek belonging
According to the U.S. Department of State, American parents adopted 78,257 children from China between 1999 and 2016. More than 60% of adoptees were girls, according to the Pew Research Center. I was one of them. In 1996, an American couple from Boston longing for a child adopted me. The orphanage told them I was abandoned outside a post office in Wuhan, less than 48 hours after I was born. My childhood was a happy one, full of dance classes, birthday parties and making my mom play Barbies with me. I lived in Boston’s West End neighborhood, sandwiched between the Charles River and the city’s historic Beacon Hill. The majority of parents who adopt children internationally were like mine: white, wealthy and over the age of 35. Many Chinese adoptees are raised in communities drastically different from those they would have experienced with their biological families. Though Boston was considerably diverse by that time, I was among just a handful of Asian students in my first elementary school and the only one in my grade.
Lian Parsons-Thomason | May 10, 2024
MSNBC | Blog GOP pushes misguided fight to add citizenship question to census
Donald Trump made no secret of the fact that he desperately wanted to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census, but following a series of embarrassing failures, the then-president’s effort collapsed in 2019. The underlying Republican goal, however, remains a partisan priority, as became clear on Capitol Hill this week. The Associated Press reported on GOP efforts to alter the 2030 count. The Republicans’ oddly named “Equal Representation Act” cleared the House on Wednesday on a party-line vote: GOP members were unanimous in their support for the bill, while Democrats were unanimous in their opposition. The measure now heads to the Democratic-led Senate, where it will be ignored. President Joe Biden has also already announced his opposition to the legislation. Many Republicans and their allies responded to the vote by suggesting that opponents were somehow taking a radical, far-left position. That’s silly: In every census for centuries, by constitutional mandate, officials have set out to count people, not just citizens. The Democratic position is to leave the status quo intact.
Steve Benen | May 10, 2024
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights | Press Release Oppose H.R. 7109 to Save the 2030 Census
On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 240 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States, our Census Task Force co-chairs, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC and NALEO Educational Fund, and the 243 undersigned organizations, we write to urge you to oppose H.R. 7109, the Equal Representation Act, and any future efforts to ask about citizenship status on the decennial census and to exclude noncitizens from the apportionment counts. As a threshold matter, H.R. 7109 seeks to achieve a clearly unconstitutional purpose, according to both Republican and Democratic administrations and the Congressional Research Service
May 7, 2024
May 6, 2024 Census Coalition Clips
National
CNN | News Opinion: The next Census could reveal a very different America
If you’re a self-identified Hispanic or Latino, or a Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) person in the US, chances are that every 10 years answering the Census gives you pause. More specifically, you might have been challenged to answer the race question, which, at least until the last Census in 2020, included five categories: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian and Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. CNN Opinion asked a range of scholars, thinkers and activists to weigh in on the announcement. These are their takes. The opinions expressed are those of the authors.
Cristian Arroyo-Santiago | May 3, 2024
AP News | News AI use by businesses is small but growing rapidly, led by IT sector and firms in Colorado and DC
The rate of businesses in the U.S. using AI is still relatively small but growing rapidly, with firms in information technology, and in locations like Colorado and the District of Columbia, leading the way, according to a new paper from U.S. Census Bureau researchers. Overall use of AI tools by firms in the production of goods and services rose from 3.7% last fall to 5.4% in February, and it is expected to rise in the U.S. to 6.6% by early fall, according to the bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey released this spring.
Mike Schneider | May 2, 2024
NPR | News Republicans in Congress are trying to reshape election maps by excluding noncitizens
A growing number of Republican lawmakers are making a renewed push for an unprecedented change to the country’s election maps. Their proposals call for excluding millions of non-U.S. citizens from the census results that determine each state’s share of House seats and Electoral College votes. In the current Congress, GOP lawmakers have filed at least a dozen measures related to using the next once-a-decade head count to tally how many noncitizens are living in the country, and then subtracting some or all of those U.S. residents from what are known as the congressional apportionment counts.
Hansi Lo Wang | May 1, 2024
Bay Area Reporter | News Census bureau plans testing LGBTQ questions on monthly survey
The U.S. Census Bureau intends to test sexual orientation and gender identity questions on its American Community Survey beginning this summer and continuing into next year. It is now asking for public comment about the testing of the SOGI questions to the national questionnaire. The survey, known as the ACS for short, is an ongoing collection by the agency into detailed housing and socioeconomic data. As the census bureau notes, it allows it “to provide timely and relevant housing and socioeconomic statistics, even for low levels of geography.” In a May 1 announcement the census bureau said it was testing the SOGI questions in order “to meet the needs of other federal agencies that have expressed interest in or have identified legal uses for the information, such as enforcing civil rights and equal employment measures.”
Matthew S. Bajko | May 1, 2024
States
Arizona
Arizona State University | News Conference draws professionals from across the US to collaborate on data research
Researchers, professors, students and nonprofit professionals gathered at Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus April 19–20 for the 2024 West Coast Nonprofit Data Conference, hosted by the ASU Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation. Beginning at the University of California Los Angeles in 2004, the West Coast Nonprofit Data Conference has a 21-year history as a place for collaboration in data, research and scholarship.
Lillian Finley | May 1, 2024
Blog Posts and Reports
Phys.org | Report Study of new method used to preserve privacy with US census data suggests accuracy has suffered
A small team of political scientists, statisticians and data scientists from Harvard University, New York University, and Yale University, has found that by switching to a new method to better protect privacy, the U.S. Census Department has introduced factors that reduce accuracy in some cases. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how they analyzed a file provided by Census officials to measure accuracy in publicly available census data and their results. Prior to the 2020 U.S. census, officials with the U.S. Census Bureau worried about the privacy of the people who provide answers to the census, opted to change the method by which they ensured data security.
Bob Yirka | May 6, 2024
The Census Project | Blog STANDARD DEVIATIONS: Why The Attack on Apportionment Threatens Our Democracy
As America grew “We the People” emerged and successfully protected against any monarch, emperor or despot. What counts is found in Article 1 of the Constitution. More specifically, it is the Decennial Census which launched a new country. Every ten years representation, taxation and even the selection of a President through the electoral college would be “reapportioned” by fresh results from the census. Put differently, the Census clause is foremost in the Constitution, appearing immediately following the first clause prescribing the form of the new Congress and before all other powers are defined, including those of the President and the Judiciary.
Steve Jost | May 3, 2024
U.S. Census Bureau | Blog An Update on Our Community-of-the-Whole Approach
As many of you may know, the U.S. Census Bureau is implementing a community-of-the-whole effort to accomplish our mission. We can’t achieve our mission without input and collaboration from our stakeholders, partners and the public – and our colleagues across the federal government, too. We know how valuable and important different perspectives are, and we are actively engaging the public in our work. Moreover, external engagement is key to understanding the data needs of the community from its own perspective. As director of the Census Bureau, one of my priorities is to seek out and listen to the multitude of diverse voices across our nation. Toward that end, I am making a concerted effort to engage stakeholders, partners and local communities across America.
Robert Santos | May 1, 2024
U.S. Census Bureau | Press Release Census Bureau Seeks Public Comment on Test of SOGI Questions
The U.S. Census Bureau published a Federal Register notice asking for public comment on a proposed test of sexual orientation and gender identity questions on the American Community Survey (ACS). The test would begin this summer and continue into next year. The ACS is an ongoing survey that collects detailed housing and socioeconomic data. It allows the Census Bureau to provide timely and relevant housing and socioeconomic statistics, even for low levels of geography. As part of the process for adding new questions to the ACS, the Census Bureau tests potential questions to evaluate the quality of the data collected. The Census Bureau proposes testing questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to meet the needs of other federal agencies that have expressed interest in or have identified legal uses for the information, such as enforcing civil rights and equal employment measures.
Stacy Gimbel Vidal | May 1, 2024
Prison Policy Initiative | Blog Changes to federal race & ethnicity standards give states an opportunity to improve data for prison gerrymandering reform
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently announced changes to how federal agencies will collect race and ethnicity data, the first change to these rules since 1997. We and other civil rights groups welcomed these changes because they will present a more nuanced and accurate depiction of the racial and ethnic diversity of the country. The Census Bureau will be following these new standards for the 2030 Census, and so these changes should also prompt states — both those that have ended prison gerrymandering and those that are considering taking that step — to change how they track race and ethnicity data for people in their prisons.
Danielle Squillante | April 29, 2024
