I became a US census worker. Here’s what I learned
On a recent Sunday afternoon, I stood in a suburban driveway in New York state, interviewing a white woman in her 50s for the US census. While I tapped her information into my governmentissued smartphone, her husband flew out their front door, demanding to know why I was there. I said I was a census enumerator, who visited the homes of people who hadn’t filled out their forms. I explained that my work ensured that our area received the funding and representation in Congress we’re entitled to, and that the community loses thousands of dollars for every person who isn’t counted.
He was unmoved. “This is bullshit!” he said. “I pay taxes. They should know this already.”
“Relax,” his wife said. “She’s just doing her job.”
I wanted to tell her it was much more than that.
On Tuesday 13 October, the supreme court ruled that the Trump administration could stop the 2020 census count before its scheduled end date. Critics say the administration’s push to end the count early is a political move that would result in an inaccurate count of the population.
It feels like an insult. I just spent several weeks explaining to my neighbors why the census was so important. Along with more than 400,000 other enumerators nationwide, I hunted down information on boarded-up buildings and vacant trailer-park lots. I enlisted neighbors to provide head counts for houses where the owners refused to open their doors. It was hard work, but I loved it because I knew it mattered.
I’d applied for the job out of panic last spring, after my writing workload plummeted during the first months of pandemic chaos. By the time field operations began in August, I had writing work again. But since the job enabled me to set my own hours, I decided to give it a try.
I liked the job from the start, but I confess I was initially embarrassed to walk through my home town carrying a big, black bag that said “United States Census”. It felt like I was broadcasting my failure as a writer, and when I bumped into neighbors, I’d push it behind my back to keep it out of view. But the longer I did the work, the more I took pride in it.
Yeah, I had to deal with the guywho-pays-taxes. But most people were receptive to the (masked, socially distant) stranger knocking on their door. They’d explain that they’d just gotten busy, or lost their form, or didn’t understand why their participation mattered. At one house, a Latino couple offered me a lawn chair and a bottle of water as we sat together on their porch. Since there were five in their family, and they had recently moved, the interview took longer than most, but they were unfailingly patient.
I missed this kind of connection. Since the pandemic began, my husband and I have met with close friends for socially distant bonfires and masked walks. These tiny gatherings have sustained us through these weird, lonely times. But until I worked for the census, I didn’t realize how much I longed for fleeting moments with strangers and loose acquaintances, who offer their warmth and kindness without expecting anything in return.
Even when people weren’t friendly, my mission – to ensure my community got the resources it deserves – kept me going. I also took pride in my reporter’s ability to gently coax people into giving me information.
At one apartment building, the doorway was littered with visitation notices from previous enumerators, and the notes about the address on my phone said the building was locked and inaccessible. I caught a break. A man who lived on the first floor noticed me scanning the mailboxes and let me in the front hallway. He said he was sick of census workers banging on the door, so I asked him to help me. He folded his arms. No, he didn’t know who lived in the other units. No, he didn’t have information on their absentee landlord.
“Where do you send your rent checks?” I asked. “Who do you call when you need something fixed?”
Finally, he threw up his hands and went into his apartment. A few minutes later, he gruffly presented a letter from the landlord with a phone number. I called the owner and he was able to tell me the number of tenants in each unit in minutes. (When enumerators can’t reach the residents of a particular address, the Census Bureau allows them to take information from proxies, such as neighbors and building managers.)
Each time I resolved an address, I felt a sweet endorphin kick. It was like playing a game except that the winnings were real – money to pay schoolteachers, fix traffic lights, and deliver meals to the elderly.
I’m happy to report that the census enumeration in my area was completed before the supreme court shut it down – I handed in my census bag and phone the day before the ruling. Plus, my writing career is going fine. But I still feel crushed by this court decision. Across the country, census enumerators like me walked through the rain and the blazing sun, sometimes dealing with vicious dogs and hostile residents, so that we could gather this important information. Each day, we told our neighbors that they mattered – they counted. Now the Trump administration and the supreme court have sent an entirely different message.
Sara Eckel is the author of It’s Not You