Abstract:
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A leading indicator of whether the 2020 census will be our last is its overall participation rate. If participation is substantially less than the 74% recorded for the 2010 Census (see Appendix), the attempt to compensate for missing data to complete an accurate census will generate a flurry of activities within the Census Bureau and will also raise costs. As of May 27th, the national response rate was 60.2 percent (https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html). Simultaneously, the Census Bureau will have to deal with a corrupt administration (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/opinion/trump-administration-corruption-conflicts.html, https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january-february-march-2018/a-year-in-trump-corruption/, https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/16/politics/donald-trump-roger-stone-maria-yovanovitch-impeachment/index.html), lawsuits, the covid-19 pandemic, “differential privacy” (Mervis, 2019) and a less than functional replacement for the American Factfinder, data.census.gov (https://acsdatacommunity.prb.org/acs-data-products--resources/american-factfinder/f/3/t/560).
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