2020 United States Census


The United States Census of 2020 is the twenty-fourth United States Census. Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2020. Other than a pilot study during the 2000 census, this is the first U.S. census to offer options to respond online or by phone, in addition to the option to respond on a paper form as with previous censuses.

Background

As required by the United States Constitution, the U.S. Census has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. The 2010 United States Census was the previous census completed. All persons in the U.S. age 18 years and older are legally obligated to answer census questions, and to do so truthfully. Personally identifiable information is private and the Census Bureau itself will never release it. However, the National Archives and Records Administration could release the original census returns in 2092, if the 72-year rule is not changed before then.
.
On Census reference day, April 1st 2020, the resident United States population was projected to be 329.5 million, a 6.7% increase from the 2010 Census.

Purpose of the Census

Reapportionment

The results of the 2020 census will determine the number of seats for each state in the House of Representatives, which mirrors the number of delegates for each state in the Electoral College, for elections in 2022 to 2030.
Forecasters have projected which states will gain or lose seats due to the 2020 reapportionment. According to these estimates,
State and local officials use census counts to redraw boundaries for districts like congressional districts, state legislative districts, and school districts.

Census data as the basis for federal funding distribution

Dozens of federal programs use census data to help direct funding to state and local areas. Census results help determine how more than $675 billion in federal funding is allocated to states and communities each year for roads, schools, hospitals, emergency services, and more.

Major design changes for 2020

The 2020 Census is the first U.S. census to offer a full Internet response option and the first to extensively use technology—instead of paper—to manage and conduct field work.
Key design changes include:
As required by the Census Act, the U.S. Census Bureau submitted a list of questions to Congress on March 29, 2018. The US Census will not share any of your information provided with any government agency. It is prohibited by Title 13 United States code. It has been challenged however the Supreme Curt always prevail in reference to Title 13 to protect the confidential and privacy of information provided. Based on those questions and a subsequent executive order, the 2020 Census will ask:
  1. The number of people living or staying at your home on April 1, 2020.
  2. : Used for the total count and to ensure everyone is counted once, only once, and in the right place according to where they live on Census Day.
  3. Whether the home is owned or rented.
  4. : Used to produce statistics about homeownership and renters for economic indicators, housing programs and informing planning decisions.
  5. The sex of each person in the household.
  6. : Used to produce statistics used to plan and fund government programs, enforce laws, regulations, and policies against discrimination.
  7. The age of each person in the household.
  8. : Used to better understand the size and characteristics of different age groups. Agencies use these data to plan and fund government programs that support specific age groups, including children and older populations.
  9. The race of each person in the household.
  10. : Used by federal agencies to monitor compliance with anti-discrimination provisions, such as those under the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act.
  11. Whether a person in the household is of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin.
  12. : Used by federal agencies to monitor compliance with anti-discrimination provisions, such as those under the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.
  13. The relationship of each person in the household to each other.
  14. : Used to plan and fund government programs that support families, including people raising children alone, and other households that qualify for additional assistance.

    2020 Census timeline

According to the Census Bureau, 60.0% of all US households submitted their Census questionnaire by May 22, 2020 - either online, by mail or by phone. Most US households were mailed an invitation letter between March 12-20 to self-respond. They account for more than 95% of all households in the US. Prior to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the remaining 5% of US households were supposed to be visited by census takers in April/May, dropping off invitation letters to owners. This has been delayed, but most census offices have re-started work again in mid-May. The final self-response rate in 2010 was 66.5% and 67.4% in 2000.

Marketing and partnerships

As in previous censuses, the 2020 Census will rely on a network of trusted voices nationwide to help raise awareness, answer questions, and encourage community members to participate. Hundreds of local “complete count committees” are dedicating resources to the efforts nationwide.
VMLY&R secured the Integrated Communications Contract for the 2020 Census campaign in August of 2016. As the contract’s primary agency of record, VMLY&R created an integrated team for this project, Team Y&R, which includes subcontractors specializing in minority outreach, digital media, earned media and more.
In March 2019, the campaign unveiled the 2020 Census tagline: “Shape your future. START HERE.” The tagline was based on research that demonstrated which types of messages will reach and motivate all populations, including segments of the population that are historically hard to count.
- redemption center in Bushwick, Brooklyn - 2020

Census jobs

The 2020 Census will hire about 500,000 temporary workers for jobs that include census takers, address listers, office staff, partnership specialists and more. Candidates can apply online at or .
Candidates must:
The printing company Cenveo won the $61 million contract in October 2017 to produce census forms and reminders, but went bankrupt less than four months later. The Inspector General of the U.S. Government Publishing Office said the agency failed to check the company's financial status, and improperly allowed the company to lower its bid after other bids were unsealed.
The coronavirus pandemic caused delays to Census field operations and counts of the homeless and people living in group quarters., Census Day, the Census Bureau still vowed to complete the count by the end of the year.

Citizenship question debate

The U.S. decennial census is used to determine federal funds, grants and support to states. The Census Bureau had included a citizenship question until 1950 when it was removed, though it continued to include a question asking about place of birth. In a January 2018 memo, an initial evaluation by Census Bureau officials advised against such a question, saying that compiling citizenship data from existing administrative records is more accurate and far less expensive. However, Wilbur Ross, secretary of the United States Department of Commerce which oversees the Census Bureau, decided the administrative approach alone would not be sufficient. The Census Bureau announced in March 2018 its plan to add a question related to citizenship for the 2020 census: "Is this person a citizen of the United States?". For the 2020 Census, Ross stated to Congress that the citizenship numbers were necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act's protection against voting discrimination. Ross was accused by Democrats in Congress of lying that the citizenship question was requested by the Justice Department and approved by him.
Upon the Bureau's announcement, several state and city officials criticized the decision, reiterating the concern about discouraging participation from immigrants, resulting in undercounting, and questioning the motives of Secretary Ross in adding the question. Three simultaneous separate federal lawsuits came out of this discovery, occurring at the district courts of New York, Maryland, and California. During the controversy over the census question, the Census Bureau ran a test census in June 2019 on about 480,000 households to determine what effects adding the census question would have on participation, and to prepare the Bureau, its staffing, and its counting measurements, to handle the potential lack of responses due to the citizenship question.
During these trials, documents released in May 2019 showed that the late Thomas B. Hofeller, an architect of Republican gerrymandering, had found that adding the census question could help to gerrymander maps that "would be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites". Hofeller later wrote the DOJ letter which justified the policy by claiming it was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Following this discovery, the United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform issued subpoenas for the Department of Justice to provide materials related to the census question and to question both Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and United States Attorney General William Barr, seeking action to judge if they are in contempt. The Trump administration on June 12, 2019, asserted executive privilege over portions of the requested documents. As a result, the House Committee subsequently voted along party lines to hold both Ross and Barr in contempt that day. The full House voted to hold Ross and Barr in contempt on July 17, 2019, in a 230–198 vote along party lines. Despite this passage, the measure will likely not have any effect on Ross and Barr unless the Justice Department takes legal actions against Ross or Barr.

New York District Court and subsequent Supreme Court case

A lawsuit, led by New York state's attorney general Barbara Underwood and joined by seventeen other states, fifteen cities and other civil rights groups, was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. During the discovery phase of the trial, new information came to light that Ross had had previous discussions with Steve Bannon before March 2018 with the intent to add the citizenship question, contradicting statements that he had made to Congress in March. This led District Judge Jesse M. Furman in September 2018 to ask that Ross clear a day in his schedule to give a deposition to the court related to the addition of the census question prior to the planned start of the trial in November.
The Trump administration filed a writ of mandamus to the United States Supreme Court, requesting that they postpone the trial, and also to defer any involvement with Ross until the start of the trial. The Supreme Court issued an order that allowed the trial United States Census Bureau v. State of New York to go forward, but agreed to postpone Ross's deposition until after the start of the trial. The Supreme Court also agreed to treat the writ of mandamus as a writ of petition, and granted certiorari to review the question raised by the government of whether a district court can request deposition of a high-ranking executive branch official on a matter related to a trial before evidence has been presented.
Judge Furman ruled in January 2019 that the addition of the citizenship question to the census was unlawful, stating that "the decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census—even if it did not violate the Constitution itself—was unlawful for a multitude of independent reasons and must be set aside." The Justice department filed a petition for writ of certiorari before judgment to have the case directly heard by the Supreme Court and bypass the normal appeal that would have been heard by the Second Circuit, given the pending deadline of June 2019 to publish the census forms. The Supreme Court accepted the petition related to Furman's ruling on February 15, 2019, a separate matter from the question of Ross's deposition, and the case's oral arguments were heard on April 23, 2019.
The Supreme Court issued its decision on June 27, 2019, rejecting the Trump administration's stated rationale for including the question. While the Court majority agreed that the question was allowable under the Enumeration Act, they also agreed with the ability of the District Court to ask Commerce for further explanation for the question under the Administrative Procedures Act, and that they agreed with the District Court that the answers Commerce had provided at the time appeared to be "contrived" and pretextual, leaving open the possibility that Commerce could offer a better rationale. The case was remanded back to the District Court, to give Commerce the opportunity to provide better explanation for the rationale of the question to the District Court, who would deem if that was sufficient before allowing the question on the census. The question would be allowed on the census only if these steps can be completed before the self-imposed form printing deadline. On July 7 the DOJ announced that it was replacing its entire legal team dealing with that question, but on July 9 Furman rejected the DOJ action, saying that reasons must be given for the withdrawal of each attorney and pointing out that the administration had been insisting for months that the question needed to be settled by July 1.
The American Civil Liberties Union has taken steps to introduce the Hofeller evidence into the New York case but it will not be heard until late 2019, after the Census forms are to be published.

California District Court case

The second suit over the census question came in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California under Judge Richard Seeborg, raised by the state of California and several cities within it. In March 2019, Seeborg similarly found as Furman had in New York that the addition of the census question was unconstitutional and issued an injunction to block its use. The government appealed to the Ninth Circuit before the Supreme Court remanded the case.

Maryland District Court case

A similar question related to the intent of the question was raised by several immigrants-rights groups in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The case was overseen by Judge George J. Hazel in the District of Maryland. Hazel had found for the pro-immigration groups in April 2019, ruling that the addition of an immigration question to the Census was unconstitutional. The government issued its appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The new Hofeller evidence was presented to Hazel as the case was being heard on appeal during June 2019 at the Fourth Circuit. Hazel stated that the new evidence "raises a substantial issue". On June 25, 2019, the Fourth Circuit remanded the case back to Hazel's District Court with the newly provided evidence, and to review if the additional evidence showed discriminatory intent. Should Hazel find such intent, it would be possible for him to place an injunction on the addition of the census question during a new discovery phase, regardless of the Supreme Court decision in Department of Commerce v. New York. This action would effectively render the question moot since the Census forms would need to be published at this point without the citizenship question to meet the mailing deadlines.

Subsequent actions

President Trump, after the Supreme Court decision in Department of Commerce was announced, stated his intent to find a way to delay the census as long as possible so that the judicial matter could be resolved. On July 2, 2019, the Department of Justice announced that the citizenship question would not be included in the census, and the Commerce Department began printing census forms without a citizenship question. However, the next day, Trump insisted that his administration was "absolutely moving forward" with the citizenship question, and the Justice Department confirmed in court that it had been instructed to find a legal way to include it in the census.
In response to an order from Judge Hazel, the Justice Department affirmed on July 5, 2019 that it will be seeking a route to add the citizenship question to the census, though at the time did not know which route it would take. Hazel had ordered this response as, if the Department was intending to add the question, he could begin determining a schedule in coordination with Judge Furman in the New York court for further proceedings and discovery in both the New York and Maryland lawsuits. On July 7 the DOJ announced its intention to replace its entire legal team on the case, but Furman allowed the DOJ to dismiss only two of its eleven attorneys, writing in the July 9 rejection that the DOJ had "provide no reasons, let alone 'satisfactory reasons,' for the substitution of counsel". Furman pointed out that the case had already run past the DOJ's own previously requested deadline of July 1 and that replacing counsel would cause further delays.
Separate from the events in the courts, Trump has stated he also considered using an executive order to place the citizenship question on the census. However, on July 11 he issued Executive Order 13880 directing the Department of Commerce to obtain citizenship data from other federal agencies rather than via the census. He added that "we are not backing down in our effort to determine the citizenship status of the United States population" and that data from other federal agencies would be "far more accurate" than a census question. A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said that although the DOJ had agreed with Ross's plan to include the question, "Today’s Executive Order represents an alternative path to collecting the best citizenship data now available, which is vital for informed policymaking and numerous other reasons. Accordingly, the Department will promptly inform the courts that the Government will not include a citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census.” Besides federal agencies, the Department of Commerce is obtaining citizenship data from state records.

Apportionment challenges

Alabama lawsuit

While the census question was in litigation, the state of Alabama and its Congressional Representative Mo Brooks filed a lawsuit against the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau in May 2018 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, asserting that the framers of the Constitution never intended for undocumented immigrants to be included in the census court or apportionment base. The state believed that it would lose a Congressional seat to other states that have had increased numbers of immigrants in the last decade. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund sought to intervene on behalf of Latino voters, as well as the city of San Jose, California and Santa Clara County, California and King County, Washington, arguing that eliminating of undocumented immigrants would affect federal funding for their cities and counties. The motion was granted by the end of 2018.
As the census question case continued, the Census Bureau spoke of other means to obtain immigration data, and Barr, referencing the Alabama suit, said that "For example, there is a current dispute over whether illegal aliens can be included for apportionment purposes. Depending on the resolution of that dispute, this data may be relevant to those considerations. We will be studying this issue." Spurred by Barr's comments that the government would not defend itself in the case, a coalition of fifteen states and other groups also moved to intervene, which was granted by September 2019.

July 2020 memo

On July 21, 2020, Trump signed a memo to the Department of Commerce, "Memorandum On Excluding Illegal Aliens From the Apportionment Base Following the 2020 Census" with instructions not to include undocumented immigrants in the census totals for purposes of apportionment. The memo stated that the Constitution does not define which "persons" must be included in the apportionment base, and past census have excluded some documented immigrants in the country temporarily, justifying the change. Law and census experts stated that this was an invalid interpretation as past case law has supported inclusion of "whole persons" including undocumented immigrants, and the ACLU stated immediately they plan to file a lawsuit against the administration over the memo. Common Cause, the city of Atlanta, and other groups and individuals filed the first suit seeking an injunction to prevent the government from executing on the memo a week after it was signed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.