Census data to be released Thursday will show which parts of Wisconsin have grown and shrunk
Key data from the U.S. Census Bureau is scheduled to be released Thursday, providing a once-a-decade window into Wisconsin’s changing demographics.
The data plays an integral role in multiple facets of life in the United States.
Not only does it show how community demographics have changed, it also defines how district maps are redrawn to determine political representation and how federal funding is allocated from infrastructure to education, from health insurance to COVID-related stimulus bills.
The Census, which is conducted every 10 years, aims to count every resident across the country. It was hugely delayed due to difficulties in collecting and processing the data during the COVID-19 pandemic and former President Donald Trump’s attempt to adjust the timing of the census.
Data collected has been used to calculate how federal funding is distributed at the state and local levels, including multiple programs such as Medicaid, SNAP, the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, Head Start, and the Federal-Aid Highway Program.
“The most interesting things will be to see definitively where population has gone up and down,” said John Johnson, research fellow in the Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education at Marquette University.
Demographic shifts expected
The data released Thursday will include population totals, including a breakdown by race and Hispanic/Latino origin and the voting-age population, according to the Census Bureau.
The data will be available for counties, towns, cities and other “geographies.”
Johnson expected the populations of the Milwaukee County suburbs and Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties to have collectively grown a bit — likely enough to offset a decline in the city of Milwaukee population.
Preliminary estimates suggest Milwaukee’s Black population will have declined, he said.
Madison and the surrounding areas are expected to grow while northern Wisconsin is expected to shrink in population, he said.
“Even within those broad changes, I suspect that there will be an increasing urbanization trend where the rural areas will probably shrink even more and the population balance in those areas will tilt toward the large towns that they do have,” he said.
David Egan-Robertson, a demographer in the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of WisconsinMadison, said one of the key points he would be looking at is changes in the state’s race and ethnicity data.
Much of the state’s growth in recent decades has been attributable to an increase in the Hispanic population, he said.
Data to be used in redistricting
The information released Thursday will be key to redrawing congressional, state legislative and local electoral district maps.
At the local level, municipalities and counties across Wisconsin are feeling the crunch as they contend with a significantly shortened timeline to redraw district boundaries so election notices can be published Nov. 23 for the spring election.
Officials have raised concerns that the short time frame will translate into less opportunity for public participation in the process. Redistricting efforts for congressional and state legislative seats are
expected to wind up in court.
The 2020 Census count was complicated by factors that included the coronavirus pandemic, Egan-Robertson said.
He also expected data analysis to be complicated by a Census Bureau decision to obscure data at the smallest geographic level, sometimes as small as a city block, to protect privacy.
“With the noise in the data, our numbers might potentially not be as accurate as they were in the past,” he said.
The survey collects data on all residents and is not dependent on their immigration status, meaning citizens and noncitizens are included in the count. Historically, minority groups and communities of color, however, have been undercounted.
The Census also faced shifting deadlines, funding challenges, technical issues and difficulties hiring the required number of census workers to collect the data. Now there are bigger concerns about the data — some worry that there will be an undercount due to political controversies.
As the deadline neared to finalize questions and the 2020 Census was already mired in political controversy, Trump sought to add an additional question to the lineup, which would ask participants whether they have citizenship — a question that had not been included since 1950. In June 2019, a Supreme Court ruling barred the question
“With the noise in the data, our numbers might potentially not be as accurate as they were in the past.” David Egan-Robertson
from being included.
Many advocates, however, still believe that the anti-immigration rhetoric during the former presidential administration frightened many immigrants, both citizens and undocumented residents, into not responding to the census.
“Without a doubt it had a chilling effect,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, a Latinx and immigrant-run organization working for immigrant and worker rights in Wisconsin. “I think the combination of the pandemic and the fear — the legitimate fear — of engaging with a government representative under the Trump administration could put you at risk, was a credible concern.”
But for Neumann-Ortiz, education was key in encouraging immigrant and undocumented residents to participate in the Census.
“Part of the reason we see it as important is empowerment — to have representation at the ballot box and to bring resources to our communities,” she said.