Census makes sense of us
Last chance to get an accurate count in Virginia as census date approaches end
We’re down to the wire for the 2020 Census. Counting stops Wednesday. If you haven’t been counted, spend a few minutes answering simple questions. That’s all it takes.
If you’ve done your part, tell others how easy it was and urge them to do likewise.
Getting an accurate count matters — a lot. The repercussions of an undercount will hurt Virginia for the next decade.
The United States has been counting its residents every 10 years since 1790, as mandated by the Constitution.
Back then, the population was about 3.9 million, although slaves were counted as only 3⁄ of a person. Today, the U.S.
5 population may be about 331 million — but we won’t really know until we get everyone counted.
More important than the overall total is that without an accurate count, we won’t know how many people live where, and what their demographics — age, gender, income, education, marital status and so on — mean for our communities.
Estimates are that for every person who isn’t counted, Virginia could lose about $20,000 over the next 10 years. That’s federal money that won’t go to communities that need it for a range of things, including health care, schools, food assistance, housing, higher education and transportation.
The census is also vital to keep our democracy viable and responsive.
It provides the numbers for redrawing congressional and legislative districts. An incomplete count can result in districts that don’t give people equal representation. They can keep the old order entrenched, even when it no longer represents a majority of people.
That reality can embroil the census in political disputes. This year, those disputes have included arguments over the Census Bureau’s decision to stop counting at the end of this month, even though officials said earlier it would take at least until the end of October to get the job done. There have been efforts to extend the deadline in courts and in Congress, but for now, all we can do is work to get everyone counted by Sept. 30.
This year may go down as one of the most difficult ever for getting an accurate census picture, and not just because the population is large and diverse.
COVID-19 has complicated the process greatly, as census workers must take health and safety precautions. But even as the task has gotten more difficult, the time allotted for conducting the census has been cut short.
Census forms were mailed to known addresses in April. There is one saving grace this year: For the first time, people can respond online. More than 70% of Virginians have now responded to the mailed forms, most of them online. Others used mail or phone.
But the old-fashioned hard work of trying to count people who did not respond to mailed forms or who never got a form, was delayed.
Complicated by the pandemic, the door-to-door effort to get responses from more than 30% of Virginia households didn’t start until mid-August. Another 23% of Virginians have been reached by the door-to-door count. Census workers deserve our gratitude.
But another 6% or more of people living in Virginia have not been reached, and that’s a lot of people.
Those who go uncounted often are minorities, people with low incomes, and young children.
Because of the pandemic, there may be more people than usual who are hard to find because they are living with friends or relatives or are homeless. Others are afraid to respond because they are immigrants, even though citizenship status is not supposed to be a factor.
It’s in everyone’s long-term best interest to see that all people living in Virginia are counted.
For those who don’t want a census worker to visit, it’s not too late to respond online or by phone.
To those who have already responded: Thank you. Now, please encourage family, friends and co-workers in person or through social media to do the same. It really is important.