[EL] Impact on the census

Sun Jun 23 22:40:57 PDT 2019

Just so there’s clarity (since so many general news media articles have
completely missed this difference):

what this article studies is the change in self-response rates, which if
they decline (to quote the article) “would predict an overall 2.2
percentage point drop in self-response in the 2020 census, increasing costs
and reducing the quality of the population count.”

This article does NOT measure expected undercount, and the 2.2 percentage
point drop estimate is self-response rates,NOT a predicted undercount.

As the article clearly states, there are follow-up efforts that make
significant strides toward filling in the data for non-responsive
households, with or without the citizenship question. According to this
Census study those follow up efforts are likely to be more expensive if
there’s is a citizenship question, and this and other articles assert that
if the follow up efforts have to rely on neighbor- or administrative
records the data may be less precise.

 (This goes back to the often-missed fact that final census records for
each household are never partial responses - if a partial form is received,
it will get completed one way or another.)

I am not weighing in either way on the study’s topic (plenty of other
sources are already doing that).

My only goal in this message is to clarify for those not deeply immersed in
Census methodology that the study does not quantify the expected
undercount, just the drop in the expected self-response rate, which is
related but very different.

- Doug

Douglas Johnson
Rose Institute of State and Local Government
Claremont McKenna College

On Sun, Jun 23, 2019 at 9:56 PM Levitt, Justin <justin.levitt at lls.edu>
wrote:

> The paper Rick flags below makes three assumptions – two acknowledged and
> one unacknowledged.  First, it assumes that the citizenship question
> affects only households with at least one noncitizen, despite fears in the
> broader community.  Second, it assumes that response in 2020 will be no
> worse than response in 2010, despite the change in climate.  Third (this is
> the unacknowledged one), it assumes that the impact of a question on the
> 10-question enumeration delivered to every household in the country is no
> more salient than the impact of a question on a 70-question survey
> delivered to a tiny fraction of the country each month.
>
>
>
> If any of those assumptions doesn’t hold, the impact will be worse.  If
> several of those assumptions don’t hold, that impact will be compounded.
>
>
>
> Oh, and the paper tallies its final results in terms of household
> response.  If the households of those who don’t answer the census are
> larger than those who do, the error rate of the total count will be larger
> still.
>
>
>
> None of that is a critique of the paper.  It’s just that there’s plenty of
> reason to think that these are still low-ball estimates of damage.  Don’t
> be surprised when the oil spill
> <https://www.britannica.com/event/Deepwater-Horizon-oil-spill> is a lot
> bigger than the initial estimates.
>
>
>
> Justin
>
>
>
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> *On
> Behalf Of *Rick Hasen
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 23, 2019 9:21 PM
> *To:* Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* [EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/23/19
>
>
> New Estimate from Census Department Researchers Forthcoming in Peer
> Reviewed Journal Finds Citizenship Question Could Depress Response Rate by
> 8 Percent in Households That May Have Noncitizens
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%3fp%3d105741&c=E,1,8R6RtcVVlv13r6DI0CzsAgz98xhdi6TiQCxhF_nQ7UhwRM90zAXlAkmJnPwv2CfjgCEeHYOeFIUvdQ-1z-gfpYqffJ_EpEfyrbdRiEg77ie-Cw,,&typo=1>
>
> Posted on June 23, 2019 9:15 pm
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%3fp%3d105741&c=E,1,uV-ltDXc0GyNguK3VMqyayOF8jSEyM2gun3TjHlz5ST0opKX7u-pbWVowcNw3gJcZQIIMQ2pOGWW7MYMZJSfnoxRsphOdsGhLbAsdZQhPlzV7fvB1h0,&typo=1>
>  by *Rick Hasen*
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%3fauthor%3d3&c=E,1,HnXH0N8WWwq6lw4NWloH6sw_3KcrptEbEliK2G-EpG2eQ0lGnx7ML6t1ZMqiR245on9EI-J34KyhVQTAWbhcs-CDIk7c7eUiTx_hlOfIfmCHFxIkYfZF5l3s&typo=1>
>
> This paper
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fassets.documentcloud.org%2fdocuments%2f6165808%2fU-S-Census-Bureau-Working-Paper-Understanding.pdf&c=E,1,WuWh_ix14K6jbrLQevvw8qrq-hzZm1NqPoTaQ-VCgeTXLQ0XYMuo1LjyT7Yi4rntjhGUWM5ECJLm6LeVA2UFF7Vff_veVj1jxvoifBb_WAZX5H4t6DCjYQ,,&typo=1> is
> forthcoming in Demography (h/t Hansi Lo Wang
> <https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1142936853575852032>). Here is
> the abstract:
>
> *he addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census could affect the
> self-response rate, a key driver of the cost and quality of a census. We
> find that citizenship question response patterns in the American Community
> Survey (ACS) suggest that it is a sensitive question when asked about
> administrative record noncitizens but not when asked about administrative
> record citizens. ACS respondents who were administrative record noncitizens
> in 2017 frequently choose to skip the question or answer that the person is
> a citizen. We predict the effect on self-response to the entire survey by
> comparing mail response rates in the 2010 ACS, which included a citizenship
> question, with those of the 2010 census, which did not have a citizenship
> question, among households in both surveys. We compare the actual
> ACS-census difference in response rates for households that may contain
> noncitizens (more sensitive to the question) with the difference for
> households containing only U.S. citizens. We estimate that the addition of
> a citizenship question will have an 8.0 percentage point larger effect on
> self-response rates in households that may have noncitizens relative to
> those with only U.S. citizens. Assuming that the citizenship question does
> not affect unit self-response in all-citizen households and applying the
> 8.0 percentage point drop to the 28.1 % of housing units potentially having
> at least one noncitizen would predict an overall 2.2 percentage point drop
> in self-response in the 2020 census, increasing costs and reducing the
> quality of the population count.*
>
> Recall that at oral argument in the census case, Justice Gorsuch sought to
> minimize census department studies which predicted (a smaller) response
> rate drop.
>
> [image: Share]
> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105741&title=New%20Estimate%20from%20Census%20Department%20Researchers%20Forthcoming%20in%20Peer%20Reviewed%20Journal%20Finds%20Citizenship%20Question%20Could%20Depress%20Response%20Rate%20by%208%20Percent%20in%20Households%20That%20May%20Have%20Noncitizens>
>
> Posted in census litigation
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%3fcat%3d125&c=E,1,lvWepiDyt5wvptovl_lCmSahdnxrPkLL2r-Zs1BPQ_RT7q9VVOlC5fFwjLiiai7bHnZgOdrOtqwB8AypEmzcyFxduR2ou5tXaru8K5hszTrCadHagYWhOJhG&typo=1>
>
>
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-- 
- Doug

Douglas Johnson
National Demographics Corporation
djohnson at NDCresearch.com
phone 310-200-2058
fax 818-254-1221
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