The U.S. Census Bureau said it has reached its goal of recruiting more than 2.6 million applicants for the once-a-decade head count that launched for most of America this week – but it has been a bumpy road getting there.
The nation’s abundance of jobs has complicated the effort, and some rural areas – particularly in New England, Appalachia and some Rocky Mountain states – are falling behind recruitment goals as the agency works to hire up to a half-million temporary workers before May. Falling short could threaten the count in some parts of the country, which in turn could lead to under-representation in Congress and less federal funding.
An analysis by the Associated Press shows how low unemployment has affected the bureau’s ability to attract workers, with urban counties, especially large ones, more likely to hit recruitment goals than rural areas. The bureau has yet to account for how hiring could be affected by novel coronavirus concerns. The virus may dampen workers’ enthusiasm for going door to door, but it could also create a new application pool of workers who have been laid off.
While the bureau has reached its recruiting goal nationally, hiring has varied widely from place to place. States with populations concentrated in large metro areas – Georgia, Illinois, Maryland and Nevada – have overrecruited. Mostly rural states with high numbers of older residents – Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire and West Virginia – are well below recruitment goals.
If the bureau can’t find enough applicants in those areas, “it may have difficulty hiring enough staff to complete upcoming operations, leading to delays, increased costs and eroded data quality,” J. Christopher Mihm of the Government Accountability Office said during a congressional hearing last month.
“Recruitment and hiring success in one area may provide little advantage to an area where efforts are lagging,” Mihm said. “The census, while a national effort, is implemented locally in communities and neighborhoods across the country.”
Most of the workers will be hired to knock on the doors of households whose residents haven’t responded by May to the census either online, by telephone or through the mail in what is the federal government’s largest peacetime mobilization. The Census Bureau hopes to hire people from the areas they will be working in because they know their communities best.
In Vermont, part of the problem is the number of jobs. Its unemployment rate was just 2.4% at the end of 2019.
“Vermont is a rural, small state, and I know we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation,” said state librarian Jason Broughton, who is chairing a committee on encouraging census participation. “That plays a huge factor. A lot of people already are working two or three jobs, so everybody is already working.”
The 2020 census started this week with the online questionnaire going live, and it is supposed to end in July. In response to coronavirus concerns, the Census Bureau said this week, “It has never been easier to respond on your own, whether online, over the phone or by mail – all without having to meet a census taker.”
Some advocates leading census outreach efforts on Friday worried that the coronavirus would lead some census takers to quit their jobs, said Jeri Green, 2020 census senior advisor for the National Urban League.