2020 Census deadline is Oct. 31 with 50,000 Michiganders uncounted
Census takers will continue knocking on the doors of Americans who have yet to respond to the 2020 Census until Oct. 31.
The deadline for when the self response and enumeration phase, counting those who did not self respond, will end has been the subject of federal court disputes since August. Two injunctions since from U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh suspended that deadline and reverted the bureau back to its original pandemic response timeline.
Michigan has the seventh highest self response rate in the nation currently. But some 20,000 households, representing 50,000 people, have yet to be counted in the state according to Eric Guthrie, demographer for the state of Michigan.
“We are concerned about whether all Michiganders will be truly counted in the 2020 Census, even with the additional three weeks,” Guthrie said. “We’re fully confident that Michigan’s more wealthy communities will be fully counted, but othersmay be short changed.”
Primarily there’s worry among census experts about rural parts of the state, the Upper Peninsula and urban centers. Twenty counties have less than a 51% self response rate, all in northern Michigan.
In Oakland County four cities have less than a 70% self response rate: Keego Harbor, Lake Angelus, Pontiac and Wixom. Oakland, Livingston and Macomb counties all rank nationally for their high response rates. Oakland County as a whole is at 79%.
Michigan 2020 Census Director Kerry Ebersole Singh said the focus now will be on digital marketing campaigns targeted at specific communities that are historically undercounted.
“We can do this by zip code and sometimes even geofencing. We can find places like multi- unit housing areas with low response rates and focus digital ads right on those addresses,” Singh said. “We are concerned about low income areas, both urban and rural, across the state.”
On Tuesday, the Trump administration asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to immediately suspend Judge Koh’s order, according to the Associated Press.