Many people already prone to falling through the cracks during the 2020 Census count have become unreachable.
Michigan has had the fifth highest total response rate thus far in the 2020 Census season, but officials say the state has a long way to go. Nationwide, the pandemic has forced workers to pivot efforts to promote the decennial count that determines how more than $30 billion federal dollars are distributed per year for 10 years.
The U.S. Census announced last week that door-to-door operations won’t begin until at least June 1. Census workers in Michigan still need to get the green light from state officials before that can even start amid the fluid coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Census Bureau also recently announced the deadline has been extended to Oct. 31, giving more time to increase self-response rate.
Michigan has the fifth highest response rate in the nation so far with 57.2 percent of the population reporting. The Great Lakes State closely trails Minnesota (60.9 percent), Wisconsin (58.4 percent), Iowa (57.4 percent) and Nebraska (57.3 percent). Those numbers reflect the current response rates and are growing every day.
While Michigan remains high in the ranks overall, the numbers vary county to county, municipality to municipality.
Getting the count right is crucial because federal policy -- and funding -- is driven by the numbers, officials said.
The census determines funding for police and fire, road and infrastructure projects, Medicaid and Medicare, literacy programs for students and nutrition programs for seniors, according to Kerry Ebersole Singh, executive director of the Michigan 2020 Census.
Officials hope to get an 82 percent response rate in the end. But the pandemic is making the job much harder this time around.
“COVID-19 is top of mind for people across our state and country and people are focused on the health and safety of their families and their jobs," Ebersole Singh said. "However, completing the census form is something everyone can do from the comfort of their home to help ensure our communities receive critical funding for essential services.”
COVID-19 Makes Hard-to-Reach Populations Even Harder to Reach
Historically under-counted populations, often in need of the most resources, are at a higher risk of missing the count due to the pandemic, Congressman Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, said. These populations are also disproportionately affected by the deadly virus.“The pandemic has ripped the cover off a lot of inequality in our society," he said.
For example, African Americans make up only 14 percent of the state’s population, but represent 33 percent of cases and 40 percent of deaths due to COVID-19, Kildee said. These populations have been hit particularly hard in cities like Detroit and Flint, where census turnout so far has been 40.9 percent and 41.2 percent respectively, well bellow the state’s 57.2 percent.
“The (Flint) community is almost entirely focused on how to deal with this pandemic," Kildee said. "Where the prevalence of COVID-19 cases are greater we have concern that’s where census participation will be lower.”
The city of Flint announced an effort to increase participation earlier this year. In 2010, the U.S. Census reported that 79.1 percent of Flint residents participated. This year before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the federal agency said it expected Flint would be increasingly difficult to count, predicting participation to decline to 74.1 percent, according to prior reporting.
“Although times are difficult, we still ask everyone to do their part. This funding is crucial to Flint,” Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley said. “We will continue to work with our partners to get all Flint residents counted.”
Census Success Story
Other Michigan communities are poised to do much better.Huntington Woods, a small city just outside of Royal Oak, has the fourth highest census response rate in the nation at 84 percent. Officials there say there is no secret to the successful rate.
City Manager Amy Sullivan said there has been the normal amount of census promotion and she had no specific explanation on what has been done differently to garner the higher numbers.
The majority of the people who have already responded -- 83.8 percent -- completed the census online. The city, with a population of 6,312, also sees higher than average election turnouts, Sullivan said.
“I’m not surprised that trend tracks across to the census as well,” Sullivan said.
The city’s goal is to surpass its 2010 Census turnout of 88.6 percent.
Different Geography, Different Stories
Meanwhile, just 15 miles away, Detroit response rates currently stand at half that of Huntington Woods, reporting 40.9 percent.In Genesee County, Flushing has seen the highest response rate at 71.9 percent response. Ten miles east, Flint has a 41.2 percent response rate.
Moving north, rural areas have similar numbers to industrial cities. Iosco County is at 41.8 percent response and Arenac County is at 44.2 percent. Meanwhile, Bay County’s current response rate is 63.4 percent; Saginaw County is at 59.2 percent and Genesee’s overall rate is at 56.1 percent.
The common factor is poverty, Kildee said.
“It’s typically the case that lower income, marginalized people are under-counted,” Kildee said. “I think sometimes people assume that means urban because there’s a lot of concentration of poverty in urban centers, and there’s some reason for that, but there’s (also) a lot of rural poverty."
Marginalized people live in small, rural communities too, Kildee pointed out. With the option to report online this census period, elderly and low income populations also may report less due to lack of broadband access, he said.
“While, the numbers are such that the problem is often greater in older cities with high percentages of poverty, it is true that we also have to make sure not to miss those rural poor who are overlooked a lot,” Kildee said.
Lake County’s Unreachable Elderly, Rural Population
Officials in Lake County know they’re going to have a problem getting all its people counted.The West Michigan county with an estimated population of only 11,881, has only seen 17.8 perecnt Census participation so far. This rate is second only to the Keweenaw County in the Upper Peninsula, which at 16.5 percent has the lowest response rate in the state, though the population is barely above 2,000.
“I’m not sure what we’re going to do to get those numbers up but I know we’re a really poor community and we need those numbers up,” Lake County Clerk Patti Pacola said.
Lake County has a high elderly population, according to Pacola. Many rely on their local library for information and internet access. Less than half of those who have reported so far used the online resources, according to a 2020 Census data map.
While most residents received notices they could respond online or by phone, about 20 percent of households automatically receive a paper questionnaire due to either lack of internet in their area or a high percentage of people over the age of 65.
“At this point I don’t know what we’re going to do on our end," Pacola said. “We’re encouraging people. We’re doing everything we can do on our end but we can’t send workers out, the libraries can’t help them.”
A group was set up before the stay-at-home order to spread information on census participation. The group is still able to use social media and attached fliers to pizza boxes, efforts that still miss much of the elderly demographics.
“We’re just not hitting the main population in our county,” Pacola said.
Census Data Drives COVID-19 Federal Response
The current coronavirus crisis is proof of why the census count is important.Lawmakers depend on the counts to craft policies and programs when responding to events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Kildee said.
Discussions over the response to the pandemic has relied heavily on census reporting, Kildee said.
“What do we need to do for cities of over 50,000? What do we need to do for communities over 100,000? What do we need to do for communities over 500,000? The way the money gets targeted is based on census information," he said.
For example, Kildee said he is currently working on a small business relief bill. The bill uses the federal Block Grant formula, based on poverty and population data.
“All these decisions we are making right now make the point that the census data is really important," Kildee said. "It determines what communities get when it comes to relief. Not only are we dealing with the problem of collecting the data because of the crisis, but we realized that our ability to respond, our resources to deal with these crises are often affected by these types of data.”
Population numbers also impact education funding.
Alisande Shrewsbury, Special Assistant to the Michigan Department of Education superintendent and liaison for the MDE census effort, pointed to The Counting for Dollars 2020 Project, which shows how federal funds are distributed to states, localities and households. It will also study the impact of the accuracy of the 2020 Census on the fair, equitable distribution of the funds.
For example, in fiscal year 2016, Michigan received $29.2 billion through 55 federal spending programs guided by data derived from the 2010 Census, according to The Counting for Dollars 2020 Project.
Census count also determines the distribution of federal Title 1 dollars, funding for school lunches, the Perkins programs for technical career and technical education and other programs that may not be directly education related, but support families and children in need of healthcare, childcare and housing, Shrewsbury said.
“With a lot of federal funding, allocation to the state of Michigan is derived from the census count," she said. "It’s important because these programs help many kids who need it most.”
‘Practically assumed’ Michigan will lose a congressional district
The census count also impacts politics.
“It’s practically assumed now that Michigan will lose a congressional district,” Kildee said. “I will say this: it’s been less in political conversations now than it normally would be because in Michigan, for the first time ever, the decision on the new district will be made by a non-partisan redistricting commission and not by the state legislature.”
When the state legislature was in charge of drawing districts, Kildee said it was “very political." The majority party would draw the districts to its benefit.
“It will have an effect, losing a district, but how that translates, what that map will look like is kind of up in the air,” he said.
Proposal 2, passed in 2018 with 61 percent of voters in favor and 39 percent against, shifted the responsibility of drawing Michigan’s state and federal political districts every 10 years to a new commission.
Initially the new group to be formed and charged with redrawing Michigan’s district lines expected to see the census numbers by April of 2021, said Nancy Wang, executive director of Voters Not Politicians, the group behind Proposal 2. Now with deadlines pushed back, numbers will not be available until July 31 of next year.
That would leave only three months for the commission to draft maps based on the data, according to Proposal 2's constitutional language, Wang said. The final maps are due Nov. 21, 2021.
While this is a more compressed time frame than anticipated and does create a challenge, Wang said similar commissions launched in other states have been successful under similar constraints, such as California in 2011.
How to Be Counted
Census officials are hoping municipalities and residents can get creative amid the COVID-19 crisis.To help promote participation, Ebersole Singh said said Michiganders can do any of the following activities:
Call, email or text friends and family members and encourage them to complete their census forms.
Host a Zoom event to discuss the importance of participating in the census.
Submit a letter to the editor to their local newspaper highlighting the importance of completing their census form.
Post a photo of their completed census form on social media and challenge 10 friends to do the same.
Participate in one of our upcoming virtual townhalls highlighting the importance of completing the 2020 census by visiting www.facebook.com/micensus.
Volunteer for a virtual phone bank to call people in your community.
“We need all hands-on deck to help us achieve our goal of an 82 percent response rate and ensure Michigan claims all the funding that’s ours,” Ebersole Singh said.
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