Census 2020 update

Dear Editor,

I saw your recent article on 2020 Census responses.  Thought I could give you an update. Our office houses the Nebraska State Data Center, a liaison program with the Census Bureau so as part of our partnership we try to get relevant information to our local areas. Like the release below for the U.S., Red Willow County is now basically at the 50% mark/milestone for responding to the 2020 Census. In the figures released Sunday afternoon for responses through Saturday, 49.8% of Red Willow County households had responded. That ranks 47th best among Nebraska’s 93 counties, so right in the middle. Overall, Nebraska is at 56.7%, tying for 2nd best in the country.

Initially, McCook households received letters and postcards prompting them to go online to complete, while rural portions of the county received paper forms right away. Paper forms were to arrive in McCook between April 8-16, but I haven’t seen a spike in response for Red Willow County so they may not have arrived or completed forms have not yet made it back to the Bureau to show up in the data. In the last week, Red Willow County has only increased by 1.5%, versus nearby Dawson County that spiked by 6.6 percentage points.

So I expect Red Willow County to receive that mailing and spike again soon (I don’t believe that Chase or Perkins Counties have received that mailing either, nor the metro counties of Douglas, Lancaster and Sarpy).

There is still work to do, as Red Willow remains more than 20 points below its 2010 response rate of 70.3%. Hayes County is the closest in the state to matching its 2010 rate (at 46.8% it’s only 7.1% away from the relatively low value of 53.9% it had in 2010).

Self-response is important as it provides better data as people take their time to think about their answers versus being rushed or hesitant to provide information in person to a census taker. Moreover, sending those census takers door-to-door to obtain responses is highly costly to the Census Bureau and the taxpayer.

 In general Nebraska is doing well with the Census but now comes the harder part in motivating those who might have reservations in answering the 10 questions or for trying to keep the Census top of mind in light of all the other news and changes with the virus. It takes about 10 minutes to complete, whether online at my2020census.gov, by phone at 844-330-2020 (English) or 844-468-2020 (Spanish) or mailing back the paper form. The response data are updated daily so they’re always a moving target.

For your ease of reference, here are the latest response percentages and ranks among Nebraska’s 93 counties released Monday afternoon for the counties you cover

Chase: 37.7%  77th

Dundy: 46.0%  61st

Hayes: 46.8%  58th

Hitchcock: 42.7%  67th

Red Willow: 50.0%  47th

Frontier: 42.7%  67th

Furnas: 48.0%  55th

So Chase County would be the biggest concern, not only because of its low response to date, but in that it remains 31.8% from its 2010 response rate of 69.5%. That gap is the 89th largest of the 93 counties, meaning it is performing in the bottom 5 counties relative to how it responded in 2010.

David Drozd, M.S.

Research Coordinator

Center for Public Affairs Research (CPAR)

Nebraska State Data Center (SDC) Lead Agency

108 CPACS

University of Nebraska at Omaha