The 2020 U.S. Census hasn’t officially been counted. The experts fear the results will be uncertain, saying, and think they should hold off on the counting.
What We Know:
- According to NBC News, the census, which is required every 10 years by the Constitution, is used to determine how many members of Congress each state gets in the House of Representatives. The data are also used to calculate local governments’ share of $1.5 trillion in many federal programs. For example, in 2010, the last seat went to Minnesota based on a population difference of about 16,000 compared to North Carolina. In 2000, the last seat went to North Carolina over Utah because of a difference of about 900 people.
- The fate of this year’s census remains uncertain as the deadline to finalize the numbers approaches, and experts express doubt about the government’s ability to produce an accurate count of the country under such tight constraints. The Census Bureau stopped the count a month early as they feared some people might be left out.
- The crucial count has faced months of constraints because of the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration’s effort to exclude undocumented immigrants from the final tally. Although the Census Bureau is working to produce a final report to President Donald Trump by the Dec. 31 deadline, advocates and even some census staffers have expressed doubt that it will be able to do so.
- Experts and researchers have expressed deep concern about the data’s quality and completeness, particularly after the agency’s director, Steven Dillingham, said in a statement late last month that processing anomalies were found in the data. He said the anomalies were routine, but media reports suggested that data scientists within the bureau are fretting about getting the all-too-important decennial count right.
It’s highly important that the numbers are correctly counted in order to ensure the data is correct. If the scientists and the experts are saying they need to wait, then it’s clear that Congress members will have to wait.
