Puerto Rico residents answer 2020 census — over and over
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — In Barrio Obrero Marina, a working class neighborhood of San Juan, the U.S. Census Bureau said that fewer than one in 10 households had answered the 2020 census by mid- August. Community leader Carmen Febres Alméstica set out to see if the government was right.
Wearing a face mask under the midday sun, Febres Alméstica, who chairs a local residents' organization, began on Argentina Street.
A woman named Ra que lPérez, her dog barking non-stop behind her small entrance gate, greeted Febres Alméstica from a balcony. Pérez said her daughter filled out a census form for her. She assured Febres Alméstica that several of her neighbors also answered t he census and that she received two visits from census workers after completing the process.
On 14th Street, a man sweeping in front of a bar closed by the pandemic said he filed a census form online. A man selling fruits and vegetables on Rexach Avenue said he filled the census out, as did three of his customers. Another man pantomimed typing on a computer to convey that his daughter completed the census online; he indicated that he did so by mail. A woman upstairs said she answered the census by phone two months before but keeps receiving letters from the Census Bureau.
Febres Alméstica was hard-pressed to find more than a handful of people who failed to answer the census on their own initiative in a barrio where the Census Bureau said only 7% had done so.
“It' s weird ,” said Mariolga Juliá Pacheco, a community social worker who accompanied Febres Alméstica on the walk. “I live in Trujillo Alto and I filled it out online, and they have visited me four times. Could it be that they aren't registering it?” Juliá Pacheco asked.
The Census Bureau said Puerto Rico' si nitial response rate for the census was only about 30% as of August, the lowest among U.S. states and Puerto Rico. About a month later, the bureau said it had succeeded in“enumerating” more than 90% of Puerto Rico households. According to statistics on the bureau's website, its door-knocking efforts in recent weeks boosted c overage here more than anywhere in the U.S..
But as the decennial count hurtles to a close on September 30, interviews by Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism show the Census Bureau's system for registering and tracking responses was plagued by problems. And the federal agency confirmed that the issues about which Puerto Rico residents have raised concerns are not unique to the island.
Census officials cite the repeat contacts as evidence the process has been thorough. At the same time, the center's reporting presents uncertainties about how many Puerto Rico and U.S. residents have been counted after submitting forms — and whether follow-ups achieved their intended result. The count determines which communities will receive billions of dollars in federal aid and how many congressional seats will each state get over the next decade. In the case of Puerto Rico, which lacks a congressional seat, census information defines local legislative representation.
Giselle La ff it te, the Census Bureau's spokeswoman for Puerto Rico, said the agency is aware of residents' concerns. “We've heard that people are a little uncomfortable because they've been visited twice or three times,” Laffitte said.