After the tumultuous end of the 2020 Census enumeration phase on Sept. 30 Oct. 31 Oct. 5 Oct. 31 Oct. 15, GMA would like to thank all its members who worked tirelessly to make sure that everyone in Georgia counts.
Before the Coronavirus Pandemic Upended lives, city officials attended workshops, formed complete count committees, handed out promotional materials and hosted events.
“As more and more jurisdictions implemented social distancing and other emergency measures, cities endured a torrent of emails and virtual meetings asking you to keep the Census in mind,” said GMA Research Manager Holger Loewendorf. “Cities accepted new challenges and continued to conduct outreach in creative ways using social media, sidewalk chalk, car parades and many other innovative ideas.”
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that it hired more than 528,000 temporary employees across the country to knock on doors and complete the count. Their work, combined with the efforts of local officials and nearly 400,000 community partners, led to an enumeration rate of 99.9% for all states except Louisiana and a national self-response rate of 67.0%, compared to 66.5% in 2010. Georgia’s final self-response rate of 62.8% places the state 38th in the country and 0.3% above the last decennial count.
“These numbers are not a reflection of the many hours cities invested in the 2020 Census, but they are correlated with Georgia’s share of hard-to-count populations, a climate of distrust in government and the limits of technology,” said Loewendorf. “Considering the unprecedented nature of the last eight months, we should be proud of our achievements and learn from this experience. Perhaps there are also reasons to believe that we can reach more people and do better next time.”
Meanwhile, the Census Bureau is processing the data to deliver complete and accurate state population counts as close as possible to the Dec. 31, 2020, statutory deadline. But it is not clear whether this deadline or the March 31, 2021 deadline to produce redistricting data can be met. Another area of concern is data quality because nearly 6% of households were counted using administrative data, which is a proxy measure when Census workers cannot complete an interview to obtain information from individual households.
GMA will provide periodic updates on post- processing efforts over the coming months.