Census Bureau Chief Confirms Sept. 30 Deadline For Data Collections
Washington, DC-National buzz over President Donald Trump’s direction to speed up completion of the 2020 Census has triggered a response from its bureau chief.
On Thursday, U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham confirmed that the bureau would end field data collection and self-response options by Sept. 30.
He further stated the bureau is continuing to evaluate its operational plans to collect and process the census data and that operations will run at full capacity, and remain flexible and adaptable by design with the ability to tap additional resources to ensure accuracy and protect health and safety of workers and the public.
After the COVID-19 outbreak delayed the launch of the census this spring, the bureau had reworked its operational timeline to give itself until the end of October to complete its data collection activities and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross back in April requested Congress to postpone by four months the statutory deadlines for congressional apportionment and redistricting, which are normally Dec. 31 and March 31. But the Trump Administration pushed to reset the deadline back to the end of September, despite the work delays wreaked by the pandemic.
“Under this plan, the Census Bureau intends to meet a similar level of household responses as collected in prior censuses, including outreach to hard-to-count communities. awards and the hiring of more employees to accelerate the completion of data collection and apportionment counts by our statutory deadline of December 31, 2020, as required by law and directed by the Secretary of Commerce,” he maintained.
He reported that, to date, 93 million households, nearly two-thirds of the nation’s households, have responded to the 2020 Census.
