Census Bureau delays deadline for 2020 count by 2 weeks
ORLANDO, Fla. – The U.S. Census Bureau is delaying the deadline for counting everyone in the U.S. by two weeks because of the spreading novel coronavirus, officials said Friday.
The 2020 census had been scheduled to stop at the end of July, but the deadline has now been extended to mid-August, said Tim Olson, an associate director for field operations at the bureau.
Most U.S. residents started being able to respond to the 2020 census recently when the bureau’s website went live and people started receiving notices to participate in the mail. As of Friday, 18.6 million households had answered the questionnaire, primarily online, said Al Fontenot, the bureau’s associate director for decennial programs.
That accounts for 14% of total households in the U.S., according to Census Bureau figures released Friday. Midwestern states – Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas – had the highest response rates in the first week or so that most of the U.S. was able to start taking the census.
This is the first once-a-decade census in which most people are being encouraged to fill out their form online, although people can still respond by telephone or by mailing back a form.
The extension of the deadline came after several lawmakers and advocacy groups asked Trump administration officials to keep the count going past July. The most recent request was sent Thursday by Democratic U.S. Rep. Grace Meng of New York, who asked for an extension through September.
The Census Bureau was pushing back by a month its operations to count the homeless, which was supposed to begin at the end of the month, as residents of states encompassing three of the nation’s largest cities – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago – faced stay-at-home orders from the governors last week.