"Every 10 years, the census counts every American wherever they live on one particular day: 'Census Day.' Since 1930, that day has been April 1. This year, the millions charged with making door-to-door counts for the 2020 decennial census must wait in the wings. Because of covid-19, field operations have been suspended until April 15," Dan Bouk reports for The Hill.
The Census Bureau "is spending $500 million on outreach efforts, including advertising, and it’s relying on more than 300,000 nonprofits, businesses, local governments and civic groups to encourage participation in their communities. Those efforts have been hamstrung by the nationwide shutdown," The Associated Press reports.
"Researchers at the Urban Institute worry that changed accommodations made in response to the coronavirus may present a distorted picture of where people are living on Census Day," The AP reports. "Some people have left their usual residences to move back in with parents or elderly relatives, escaped to vacation homes or had to move because they couldn’t pay rent due to lost jobs during the pandemic, they said."
The day should serve as a reminder to rural residents especially that it's important to respond—federal funding and congressional representation are riding on it, and rural states depend the most on the census for such funding.
Rural areas are likely having a harder time responding to the census this year, though. The Census Bureau shifted to relying primarily on online response this year, which puts areas with limited high-speed internet access at a higher risk of being undercounted.
That migration could affect rural counts, since many people have been fleeing to rural areas in recent weeks to escape the pandemic. Some towns have asked summer residents to stay away.
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