Cynthia Buckley is among the many experts who have voiced concerns and even alarm about preparations in recent years leading up to the 2020 census. A demographer and sociology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Buckley has been part of a watchdog effort called The Census Project. With census forms going out to millions in the next few weeks, she spoke with News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain about where things stand for both the nation and Illinois.
What’s your perception of census planning and preparations now?
The U.S. Census Bureau and state, regional and community leaders have done a good job on outreach and education for 2020. They have developed multiple means for encouraging participation, including online materials (www.2020census.gov) aimed at those hard to locate, contact, persuade and interview. The most important preliminary work is in partnering with local groups, particularly those with insights into hard-to-research populations, and the Census Bureau has done that.
What’s concerned me has been the late interventions to change census questions, as well as continuous budget delays and shortfalls that led to the cancellation or severe restriction of important field tests. Such persistent cancellations and delays in lead-up preparations pose special challenges for 2020 as this is the first U.S. census to allow online participation, employ new cloud storage data technology and use “differential privacy” approaches to enhance the anonymity of individual data files.
What makes participation in the census so important?
The census provides population counts relied on for the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding. Results are used to adjust the distribution of congressional seats. Less publicized, but of critical importance, is the insight provided into the structure, composition and distribution of the American population. Data are extraordinarily important for business planning, public policy development and the verification of data from other Census Bureau data efforts, such as the American Community Survey and the Economic Survey.
Americans are actually obligated by law to participate in census data-collection efforts. Fines can be imposed on anyone who “refuses or willfully neglects” to provide requested information, though that hasn’t happened since 1970. But whether voluntary or obligatory, the census is a decennial celebration of the idea that everybody counts, and it is critical to count everyone.
What, if anything, guarantees the security of the information collected or restricts its use?
Title 13 of the U.S. Code charges the Census Bureau with keeping data confidential. Responses are not available to law enforcement, courts or any other government agencies, including the IRS. Confidentiality is a central tenet of the work culture at the Census Bureau, and all those joining the 2020 census efforts, whether part-time or full-time, are instructed on the importance of confidentiality from when they apply.
Procedures to maintain confidentiality include online sites that advise respondents on how to avoid fraud and scams, careful background checks and photo IDs for all census enumerators, significant investments in information technology infrastructure to prevent and contain cyberthreats, and the new “differential privacy” approaches.
Census data at the national and local level is widely accessible in the aggregate. For researchers interested in more-detailed but anonymous census and administrative data, access is granted only by application. Researchers also can access samples of census microdata, but this too is anonymized, with geocodes for individual files aggregated to make individual attribution impossible.
How prepared is Illinois for an accurate count?
Illinois had a first-round response rate of approximately 70% in 2010, above the national average, but the Census Bureau still estimates it “missed” about 60,000 state residents. That resulted in a total loss of around $120 million in federal money in the health area alone. Whether your politics are red or blue, that is a lot of green. State and local officials and activists across the political spectrum are engaged in promoting the 2020 census in an effort to improve on that.
An accurate count in a state with both low-density rural regions and a major international metropolis is challenging. We also need a full enumeration of the foreign-born. As an international migration magnet, Illinois will suffer more than our neighboring states from an undercount of that population.
Unfortunately, the results of a Pew Research Center survey released last month indicated that 56% of Americans believe there will be a citizenship question on the census. This is absolutely false, but it’s likely to dampen the participation of resident immigrants – all of whom, regardless of status, should be included in an accurate count.
We’ve heard a fair amount about an Illinois exodus, of people leaving the state, and it’s expected the census results will show some decline in the population. How serious is it?
While good demographic data is critical for developing good public policy, few aspects of the census are subject to more misuse and hyperbole to suit political agendas than population data. Newspaper accounts claiming a stampede out of the state typically use comments from a few families or individuals to buttress a claim that taxes and corruption are driving hordes of residents out of the state.
Demographically, the “Illi-pocalypse” has not quite arrived. In 2010, Illinois was the fifth most populous state. In 2019, after trading places with Pennsylvania, we are now sixth, and still the largest state in the Midwest. While the net population decline of 1.2% is worthy of note and certainly deserves further research, it is not a mass clearing. West Virginia, for comparison, witnessed a population decline of about 3.3% over the same period. Due to high growth rates in states like Utah, Washington and Texas, Illinois may lose a congressional seat following the 2020 census, as it did following each of the last two.
Do we know from research what motivates people to leave one state or region for another?
Migration motivations in the U.S. vary by age groups. Not surprisingly, migration peaks in the late teens and early 20s, driven by educational or employment opportunities. Migration for those in their mid-60s has varied with weather, recreational opportunities, cost of living and familial proximity. Detailed statistical assessments of national trends have yet to find overwhelming evidence on the effect of major infrastructural investment, the level and availability of welfare payments, or property tax rates.