Many Black Folks Don’t Want to Be Counted, According to the Census
According to the preliminary results of the 2020 U.S. Census, which came out recently, since 2010, Chester City’s population has decreased by 1,367 people (4.02% of its population). Is this data accurate?
It seems that many Black folks here prefer not to be counted in the Census. In fact, it was even hard to persuade Black folks in Chester to work as census counters for the Census Bureau, even though they were eager to hire people, and were paying close to $20 an hour.
The Census folks have designated Chester a “hard to reach community.” Local organizations around Chester did what they could to get the word out to encourage participation, but, as usual, participation was extremely low. In some Chester neighborhoods, the rate of participation was only 34 percent.
I recall Chester Councilwoman Elizabeth Williams making a passionate plea about how important the Census is to Chester, and how big an impact it has on the city’s ability to help fund schools, public works projects, etc. It has been suggested that each person who is counted makes an additional $2,000 available for such government programs. Yet it seems that huge numbers of Black folks go uncounted—and not only in Chester. For example, the 2020 Census preliminary census data lists Sharon Hill’s population as decreasing by 1,683 people (21.87% of its population). Like Chester, Sharon Hill has a large Black population. What’s the problem here?
It was only a matter of time before the Washington Post put out an article titled, “Census Likely Undercounted Black Residents, Analyses Find.” According to the article:
“Two new analyses suggest the 2020 Census may have undercounted Black people at a significantly higher rate than usual, raising concerns about whether underserved communities could lose out on fair representation and funding over the next 10 years … If the analyses are borne out, the higher undercounts could have profound implications for a wide array of federally funded services, including Medicaid and Medicare, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), highway planning and construction, Section 8 housing vouchers, Head Start, and other programs.”
The article notes that the highest undercounts are in communities of color and among renters, low-income earners, and children; these are all groups that tend to be among the largest in cities like Chester.
State Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D., Mich.) says,
“It was a perfect storm for an undercount on multiple levels. Many people in poor neighborhoods and communities of color are already reluctant to respond to questions about their household members.”
Many black folks, especially those in poor neighborhoods, mistrust how personal data will be used against them, and would rather not share anything with the federal government. Like many people, they may worry that the government already has access to more information on ordinary folks—from smartphone use and social media activity—than can be imagined.
It’s important to emphasize that the current 2020 census numbers are preliminary, because the Bureau will pass that early data through a formula to try to correct for the undercount they know occurs in hard to reach communities—based on other data that helps them estimate it.
The full extent of the survey’s undercounts and overcounts will become clearer next year, when the Bureau releases its “modified race file,” a tally that sorts people who marked “some other race” into Black and non-Black categories.
I don’t believe that this formula does much to help correct the data in a place like Chester, because it doesn’t have a large population of people who identify as “some other race.” In Chester, most folks tend to check the “Black” box because they don’t consider themselves “half black,” “mixed black,” “sorta-black,” or “Black-ish.” Most of us feel we’re either Black or we’re not.
Members of a community should have the benefit of an accurate census count. so that local officials know what services should be provided and to whom. So I support local governments doing their own ongoing census rather than relying solely on a national census every ten years.
Small cities like Chester should be able to assemble a much more accurate count of its residents on a block-by-block basis and combine that data with voting records, tax records, and local school district data, to get an accurate enough count of who lives in the city, what government services they require, and what value each individual who lives here has to the community. A local census conducted by the local government is the best method to serve the local community. It can also serve as a double-check to federal census data, which is obviously a calculated guess at best.
For a community to be strong, the people who live in that community have to stand up and be counted. Whether you’re someone who can contribute to the good of the community or someone in need of services from the community, until you come forth to be identified, do you really count?
