Census 2020: How it’s supposed to work (and how it might go terribly wrong)

Right now, the Census Bureau is attempting to gather the addresses of every person living in America in preparation for Census 2020. Without proper funding, some outreach will get cut. On top of that, another bad hacking incident like what happened with Equifax could scare people into not responding, especially online.

If a lot of people aren’t responding, the Census Bureau will likely have to rely on “Plan C” to use data to fill in the blanks for people the bureau couldn’t reach in person. It’s a largely untested tactic. Indivar Dutta-Gupta, a data expert and co-director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, is especially worried about a scenario where the government starts relying on commercial data collected from firms such as Experian, which typically undercount low-income people. “To know someone is between 25 and 40 is all commercial databases care about. That’s not good enough for the census,” said Dutta-Gupta.