It’s Census Day. What Happens Now?

Speaker 1: 00:01 Just the last hour you heard governor Gavin Newsome provide an update on the state's Covance 19 response. There are now 8,155 positive coven, 19 cases in the state with 173 deaths and a surge of coven 19 patients looming. During that update, the governor also issued new guidelines on face masks. Speaker 2: 00:21 So face coverings broadly defined, uh, can be additive but not a substitute to the social distancing, the physical distancing that is required of the moment to make that model mute and to make sure that we continue to bend that curve. Speaker 1: 00:38 Meanwhile, schools will not open before summer, but classes will be in here. Superintendent of schools, Tony Thurmond. Speaker 3: 00:45 But out of an abundance of caution, uh, we believe it is most important that all of our schools, uh, maximize their efforts around distance learning to help all of our students. Uh, we know that this is difficult. We know that this is a challenge, but as it relates to the education of our kids, we have to rise to that challenge. Speaker 1: 01:08 And against that backdrop today is also census day. The day. The massive job of counting every person living in the United States begins in earnest since his officials have vowed to complete the count by its year end deadline despite the novel coronavirus pandemic. By now, every person should have received a letter from the census Bureau with an invitation to participate. Millions have responded already for more on how the count is going. Is Jeff, he knows deputy regional census manager in the LA regional census center. Jeff, welcome. Speaker 4: 01:41 Thank you. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 01:43 So first I have to ask about the Corona virus pandemic. Has the census Bureau made any changes to its protocols and procedures since Covin 19 Speaker 4: 01:52 yeah, so the current situation is affecting the entire country and the entire world. And first and foremost, the health and safety of our staff and the public at large remains of the most utmost importance in everything that we do. So our leadership is the census Bureau is carefully monitoring the situation and we're following all of the current federal, state and local health authorities. People are still responding in great number and everyone can still respond online@twentytwentycensus.gov over the phone by calling the number provided in the census and the patient and by paper through the mail. So as we continue to monitor the situation, we've adjusted our field operations in order to protect the health and safety expenses, employees and the public and ensure a complete and accurate count of all, all of our communities. So, um, we have had to, uh, postpone some of our census operations, but we have not put in jeopardy any of our final deadline. Speaker 1: 02:54 Hmm. Uh, what census operations have been postponed? Is that the, the outreach door to door knocking. Speaker 4: 03:01 So we have a couple of major operations that have been postponed until April 15th, and one of them is, is what's called update leave. And what that is, is in some of the more rural areas where homes don't have personnel, they don't have mail delivery, where Boston, where people maybe get their mail delivered to a PO box. In those kinds of areas. We generally have a census enumerator go out, update the maps, make sure we have every address included in our maps and actually leave a questionnaire at the door. So we were just starting that operation a few days in when the whole Corona virus pandemic hit so that that operation has been postponed. So there are a percentage of the population, it's 5% or less of the population that did not actually get a paper questionnaire dropped off of their door. And so once we resume on April 15th the hope is that we can, we will continue that operation and deliver the remaining questionnaires in those rural areas. Speaker 4: 04:00 Additionally, we have our operations where, where we conduct interviews, where we collect data, the census data for people living in what we call group quarters. And these are situations like college dormitory, County jails and other types of situations where people are living in group type situations. That operation is, has been postponed due to the pandemic. And additionally the operation account, the population experiencing homelessness. And that was scheduled for March 30th through April 1st where we, where we interview people or count people staying at homeless shelters at a soup kitchen, receiving services with two kitchens and, and, um, mobile food vans and, and also account people, you know, living outside, living in outdoor locations. Uh, that was scheduled for March 30th through April 1st it's now been delayed or postponed until the end of April beginning of may. Are there any concerns that the account itself can just be completely delayed? The census Bureau's confident that the account will be completed and delivered to the president's desk by the constitutionally mandated deadline of December 31st point. Speaker 4: 05:16 We have had to postpone some of our start dates and we built in, uh, cushions to be able to complete those on well, well within the timeline that we need to. Are you aware of any census worker testing positive for Corona virus? It's, unfortunately we do have confirmed cases of employees who've been diagnosed with open 19 and they're all in quarantine. Uh, none of them have come into contact with the public and again, they're all in quarantine so that this current situation impacts us all and our hearts go out to those who are affected across the country. It's been something that's been difficult to deal with. Speaker 1: 05:57 What's the Bureau doing to protect its workers and mid the pandemic, Speaker 4: 06:01 again, many of our operations have been postponed to protect the safety and health of our employees and of the public. Additionally, although the, the, the, the census operations are, are considered an essential activity, it's governed as government work. All employees that are eligible to telework are teleworking and working from home and we're maximizing the use of telework and people working at home in order to keep them safe. And again, we're, we're assuring that we follow all, uh, health guidance provided at the federal, state and local levels. Speaker 1: 06:35 Yeah, the census started sending out letters to every household in the country to participate in the count. Do you have a sense of what the response has been from San Diego County residents so far? Speaker 4: 06:45 So currently San Diego County is actually higher than the national average in San Diego County is currently at 41% self response began on March 12th. That's when the first questionnaire is the first invitation to respond were being received in households and it continues through August 14. So we're in the early stages and it's encouraging to see that we're already nationally, we're already over 36% and even more encouraging in San Diego County that we're at, we're at 41% Speaker 1: 07:16 and you know, we all know that the census takes place every 10 years. But remind us why the data is so important. What does it use for, you know, especially at a time like this when we're in a national emergency. Speaker 4: 07:28 Oh sure. So, uh, two, two things that the, why the census is so important. It boils down to these two things. Power and money. So talking about power, census results determine each state's representation in the U S house of representatives and inform legislative district boundary. So power of voting. The second part is money responses to the 2020 census shaped decisions about how hundreds of billions of dollars in federal, state and local funds are spent in all of our communities each year, including funding for local hospitals and emergency services. So when we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars every year and the census is only done once every 10 years, multiply that hundreds of billions by 10 and we're talking trillions of dollars over the, over the course over the span of 10 years are distributed based on census count. So it's a really big deal. So when individuals in a community, when a community doesn't respond or their people choose not to respond and those communities are potentially under counted, they're also underfunded, they're, they're not, they may not receive the funds that they are entitled to. Speaker 1: 08:39 So in a situation like we're experiencing today where we're in a national emergency, if you've got an undercount in an area that area may not receive the federal dollars needed to address the emergency happening, correct? That's correct. That's why Speaker 4: 08:56 it's so important that we, we, we get everyone to respond and it starts with self response and, and getting people to respond online over the phone. Even though the old fashioned way of filling out the census form and mailing it in where we met, we're trying to make this as simple and easy as possible for individuals. And, and also say title 13 of the U S code protects the data, protects the information that people provide, Speaker 1: 09:23 counting everyone is crucial to getting federal dollars. What groups are at risk of not being counted and why? Speaker 4: 09:29 So generally, uh, the poppy, the populations that are, that are considered harder to count or are historically had been under counted are generally our minorities. Uh, low-income renters. There's different variables that, that are, that are reviewed and, and shown to be the populations that are less likely to respond to the census so that the census Bureau has a national, uh, advertising campaign and it had a lot of focus, especially on the heartbeat count population. Speaker 1: 10:03 Hmm. You know, president Donald Trump tried to get a question about citizenship in the census, but didn't succeed. Do you expect, uh, legal immigrants and people without documents will participate in? How are you making sure they do? Speaker 4: 10:17 So we want everyone to respond. Everyone living in the country as of April 1st, 2020 we want and needs to respond to the census and it's actually required by law to respond to the census. All the data that's protected under title 13 of the U S code, it's not shared with that with immigration. It's not shared with the IRS. It's not shared with any federal, state or local agency. It's not shared with any private or public company as well. Just all the individual census records are kept completely confidential. Speaker 1: 10:48 And what do you want to remind people of on this census day? Speaker 4: 10:53 So it's safe. The data is protected under title 13 of the U S code held completely confidential. It's simple. It takes less than on average, less than 10 minutes to respond to census. And it's important. Hundreds of billions of dollars of federal funding is distributed to communities across the country based on the census on sensitive data. So respond early, respond, respond now. And also encourage your friends, your family, get on social media, help people to respond to the sentence. It's important that we all respond. Speaker 1: 11:28 I've been speaking with Jeff, he knows deputy regional census manager at the LA regional census center. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us. Speaker 4: 11:36 Oh, thank you.