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What does a citizenship question mean for census data and dollars?

Apr 23, 2019
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the 2020 census should include a citizenship question.
Demonstrators rally at the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on April 23, 2019, to protest a proposal to add a citizenship question in the 2020 Census.
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Census Bureau wary of 2016-style interference

Mar 29, 2019
The U.S. government is worried the same kind of interference that made its way into the 2016 presidential campaign could affect the 2020 census. As a result, the Census Bureau is asking for help from technology and social media giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter to fight any misinformation campaigns that might target the once-a-decade […]
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The 2020 census is going high-tech and online

Feb 14, 2019
Every 10 years, the U.S. government counts every living person in the country. The 2020 head count will be the first U.S. census conducted mostly online. “For more than 200 years, the census has been this pencil and paper activity,” said Issie Lapowsky, senior writer at WIRED. “It’s a really human intensive, really time-intensive process.” […]
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U.S. Census Bureau will be looking to hire field workers in a competitive labor market

Oct 8, 2018
The U.S. Census Bureau says it needs to hire hundreds of thousands of workers to complete the 2020 census. But since the economy is in such good shape, with unemployment down to 3.7 percent in September, that hiring task may be a lot harder than it was back in 2010. And the census faces more […]

A proposed question on citizenship status on the 2020 census could depress Latino turnout

May 14, 2018
The 2020 census count is two years away but local officials are already planning how to get everyone counted. Census data is used for determining congressional seats and for distributing billions of dollars in federal funds annually. For many reasons, urban communities and communities of color can be harder to count. And for Latinos, a new […]

The census adds a citizenship question for the first time since 1950

Mar 27, 2018
Every 10 years, the government takes an accounting of us. Ideally, every one of us. And that population count — the U.S. Census — determines a lot of things, like how many seats your state has in the House of Representatives, and how much federal money is doled out to local communities for important services […]

Can technology make the census more accurate?

Oct 31, 2017
The census influences how hundreds of billions of dollars are spent. Will reaching out online improve the response rate?
Forms for Census 2010 are displayed during an event April 1, 2010 in Washington, DC.
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Census director resigns as ramp up for 2020 count begins

May 10, 2017
The resignation of the U.S. Census Bureau director leaves the agency with no leader just month before it begins a big hiring and technology push for the 2020 census. Data from the census is useful far beyond counting the population. Economists and businesses use census numbers to decide where and when to expand, or pull […]