7 ms·

I think there is a case for the opposite trend as well - anecdotally I and many others I know moved from NY to another state after responding to the census as a

I think there is a case for the opposite trend as well - anecdotally I and many others I know moved from NY to another state after responding to the census as a resident of NY. From what I observed (and when I responded) most of the census outreach in NYC was early in 2020 before the pandemic really hit. USPS published some data using change of address information that shows NY lost a good number of residents during 2020, how many of those responded to the census before or after they moved is a toss up though. No conclusion, just adding some context.

codezero 5y ago
Even in California when we saw folks moving away I had a census worker on foot knocking door to door trying to ask about who lived in the various apartments - and at the time I know a lot of folks had moved away even if temporarily.
CameronNemo 5y ago
Yeah this is such a cluster. Makes you think that maybe we should not be doing point in time counts every ten years. That can have a huge impact on entire generations of people. American Community Surveys run far more often, showing that we can potentially change our ways.
- xnx 5y ago
  It's also astounding that this is the standard method when Apple/Google/Facebook/AT&T/Verizon could trivially give an instantaneous and probably more accurate count.
  - danso 5y ago
    None of those companies are likely to uniformly count all of the things that the Census purports to do, such as race/ethnicity and housing status.
  - economusty 5y ago
    So I change my Facebook profile and get counted as a resident? Is that what you are suggesting?
- danso 5y ago
  Sure, but (ignoring the Constitutional decennial mandate, which also requires Census subjects to be defined 3 years before the actual counting [0]) what's a cost-effective alternative? The budget for the 2020 Census was $7+ billion [1]. And while the ACS annual surveys are considered accurate, what would be the right period for changing Congressional seat counts? It obviously can't be annual (since House terms are every 2 years). [0] https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/census-constitution.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/abo... [1] https://www.census.gov/about/budget.html https://www.census.gov/about/budget.html

codezero 5y ago

Even in California when we saw folks moving away I had a census worker on foot knocking door to door trying to ask about who lived in the various apartments - and at the time I know a lot of folks had moved away even if temporarily.

CameronNemo 5y ago

Yeah this is such a cluster. Makes you think that maybe we should not be doing point in time counts every ten years. That can have a huge impact on entire generations of people. American Community Surveys run far more often, showing that we can potentially change our ways.

xnx 5y ago
It's also astounding that this is the standard method when Apple/Google/Facebook/AT&T/Verizon could trivially give an instantaneous and probably more accurate count.
- danso 5y ago
  None of those companies are likely to uniformly count all of the things that the Census purports to do, such as race/ethnicity and housing status.
- economusty 5y ago
  So I change my Facebook profile and get counted as a resident? Is that what you are suggesting?
danso 5y ago
Sure, but (ignoring the Constitutional decennial mandate, which also requires Census subjects to be defined 3 years before the actual counting [0]) what's a cost-effective alternative? The budget for the 2020 Census was $7+ billion [1]. And while the ACS annual surveys are considered accurate, what would be the right period for changing Congressional seat counts? It obviously can't be annual (since House terms are every 2 years). [0] https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/census-constitution.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/abo... [1] https://www.census.gov/about/budget.html https://www.census.gov/about/budget.html