This week, the White House announced proposed changes to how the U.S. government produces census results — changes that could affect the population counts used to determine states’ representation in Congress and the Electoral College, redraw redistricting maps, and more.
As this proposal makes its way through the news cycle and gets interpreted by media and leaders, it’s worth stepping back to understand how the census feeds into our country’s entire information ecosystem.
At NCoC, our Census Quality Reinforcement (CQR) work is focused on making the next decennial census as complete and accurate as possible. That means supporting efforts to reach hard-to-count populations and communities, promoting effective outreach to people with low literacy, and strengthening the systems and processes that underpin the count itself.
In response to this week’s news, we’ve put together a preliminary primer explaining why accurate census data is critical — with a more detailed version coming soon.
Here are five ways the census shapes statistics you encounter every day:
- Directly — through the raw population count and detailed maps used to allocate congressional seats, redraw voting districts, and enforce civil rights laws.
- Indirectly — by supplying the baseline numbers that other government surveys use to produce job numbers, inflation rates, and more.
- In the private sector — where companies rely on census-based data for market research, site selection, and workforce planning.
- In local government — where cities and counties use it to decide where to build schools, hospitals, roads, and other infrastructure.
- In research — where it provides the population figures needed to calculate rates for things like crime, disease, and economic activity. It’s especially important for small communities that other surveys don’t cover well.
Read the full primer for a deeper look at each of these, and why so most of the public and private data we rely on ultimately traces back to how well the census counts everyone.
