2020 Census Processing Updates

In keeping with the U.S. Census Bureau’s long-established commitment to being entirely transparent in the production of our statistics and data products, I’m writing to provide an update on data processing for the 2020 Census. In every decennial census, we are the first to identify and analyze the quality of our data, including the extent to which we overcount or undercount key population groups in our country. We cannot do this in detail until we complete the Post-Enumeration Survey later this year, however we know a lot already about the accuracy and completeness of our population counts in the 2020 Census. I blogged with some initial impressions in early November, and we’ve made a lot of progress since then. But as reported in the media, some issues have surfaced as well. Most of these issues are typical and are similar to those we’ve encountered in prior decennial censuses. Others are novel to planned improvements for the 2020 Census, and some are related to the difficulties experienced collecting data during the COVID-19 pandemic.