The 2020 Census is happening now. You can complete your questionnaire online, check out this video to learn how. 

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​Introduction

​The U.S. Constitution requires a count of the United States’ population every 10 years with the goal of counting every resident.Counting everyone who lives in Washington is important to the future of our state. Collecting accurate information on the number of people who live in Washington, their ages and other demographic data ensures we receive our fair share of federal dollars for vital community programs. In 2016, based on data collected during the 2010 Census, Washington received more than $16.6 billion in federal assistance. 

The Census also determines number of representatives that states have in Congress, which can make a difference when it comes to issues significant to Washingtonians.
​Beginning in March 2020, all households will receive a mailing from the U.S. Census Bureau asking them take the Census online or by phone. “Census Day” is April 1. Despite its importance, some individuals are reluctant to take the Census. That’s where you come in. State agencies serve millions of people, giving us opportunities to encourage people to take the Census, to answer questions and to break down barriers to participation.

​Response Outreach Area Mapper

The Response Outreach Area Mapper (ROAM) application was developed to make it easier to identify hard-to-survey areas and to provide a socioeconomic and demographic characteristic profile of these areas using American Community Survey (ACS) estimates available in the Planning Database. Learning about each hard-to-survey area allows the U.S. Census Bureau to create a tailored communication and partnership campaign, and to plan for field resources including hiring staff with language skills. These and other efforts can improve response rates. To learn more see The Low Response Score (LRS): A Metric to Locate, Predict, and Manage Hard-to-Survey Populations and The 2020 Census at a Glance: Plan Census Outreach with the Response Outreach Area Mapper tool.

​To help you get started, please reference ROAM's additional resources:
  • What's New
  • User Guide
  • Data Dictionary
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Quick Tips Guide
  • Fact Sheet
  • Recorded Webinar
  • ROAM Application
Interact with the live application below, or open it in a separate window

Counting Young Children in the Census 2020 

Think about the babies who will be born in 2020.

The first smiles.The first steps. The first words. In the years to come, some may need day care, after-school care, or school lunch programs. And all children will need safe communities in which to grow and thrive.

That's why it's so important that we count newborn babies and young children accurately. Responding to the 2020 Census can help shape resources for children and their communities over the next decade. This could include support for health insurance programs, hospitals, child care, food assistance, schools, and early childhood development programs.

Census Communications and Resources ​

  • Self-Response Report: We end the week having passed the 57 percent milestone in self-responses and joining our Midwestern states in becoming a deeper shade of blue on the self-response map! At 57.7% self-response, we are in the seventh position after the upper Midwestern states – and now Kansas that knocked us out of sixth position!! The reigning counties are King and Benton at 62.2% and 62%, respectively, followed by Clark at 61.%, Spokane at 61.6%, Thurston at 60.7%, Snohomish at 60.6% and Kitsap at 60.4%. The city with the highest response in the state is Brier at 75.2%. For cities with a population greater than 50,000, the top performing city is Sammamish at 72.2%. Top performing city with a population greater than 75,000 is Bellingham at 66.8%, and top performing city with a population greater than 100,000 is Spokane at 63.4%. And, last but certainly not least, our top performing tribal areas are Port Gamble at 73% and Puyallup at 58.4%. Thanks to all for everything you are doing to ensure a complete count in our state – and congratulations to all these top achievers!
  •  We are less than 10 points away from reaching our state mail back response rate of 67.2% in 2010. Let’s hope that the fifth mailing that starts on Monday and continues through May 9 – a postcard saying “It’s not too late!!” – can help move the needle!
  • Announcements and Resources:Census Bureau launches new survey, which it will administer via e-mail and text starting this week. This week, National Public Radio reported that the Bureau received emergency approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to e-mail or text an online survey link to 13.8 million homes over 12 weeks to measure employment, spending, food and housing security, education disruptions, physical and mental wellbeing during COVID-19 pandemic. The nationwide survey is called the "Household Pulse Survey," and it starts this week by contacting an initial 2.2 million homes nationwide.
    • What does this news mean for you? As advocates, you may get a question from one of the approximately 276,000 households in Washington state who get the survey and who may confuse the survey with the 2020 Census or may become confused because they did not expect to be contacted by e-mail.
    • Additional details:
      • At present, the survey is going out only via e-mail, which will come from covid.survey@census.gov.
      • Later, the Bureau may decide to start texting the survey link to people as well. When and if it decides to use texting, it will share publicly the number from which the text will be sent.
      • More information from the Census Bureau on this topic can be found here.
  • Next Friday is May 1, International Day of the Worker. BLM Seattle King County and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle are hosting an online MayDay: Day of Virtual Action in support of a full census count.
  • This week, ReWA (Refugee Women’s Alliance) sent me links to all the language videos they have produced (with English subtitles). Hopefully, some of you will be able to share these videos with your audiences.
  • Creative ideas heard this week to encourage Census participation:
    • Go Positive: Instead of trying find individuals who haven’t responded, find those who have responded and ask them to contact 10 friends or family members to ensure that they have completed the census – and to encourage self-response, if not. A simple idea… but likely to be effective.
    • Get a call from someone famous: I think we have all mastered the idea of conducting raffles for gift cards (and that is a really useful incentive in these COVID-19 days). On a more frivolous note, New York City launched a raffle/contest to get people to complete the Census and enter a contest to be the person who gets a telephone call from Lin-Manuel Miranda. https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/1252960892708421632 Who are our hometown heroes who could inspire some of our low-responding neighborhoods to reply?
    • Last week, NALEO sponsored a Latino Census Week of Action and this week, they shared out their plan publicly. It has lots of good links to videos and messaging in English and Spanish, targeting the Kids Count and the powerful voice of women figures in the Latina community. I especially liked this four-minute video, connecting our current COVID-19 crisis and the importance of the census to the LatinX community for political and economic reasons.
  • The Census Bureau has launched a new page on the website called Fighting 2020 Census Rumors. Help us ensure accurate information is shared about the census but reporting rumors to rumors@census.gov.  
  • Count the Nation A free sharing site for Census artwork and creative design assets.
  • Guide to Developing an Outreach Plan
  • 2020 Census Tagline
  • NEW 2020 Census Logo. To access Census logos for promotional materials, please contact Jesse Alcala in the Los Angeles Regional Census Office at jesse.i.alcala@2020census.gov
  • Shape the Future Video
  • Census Resource Guide (National Urban League).
  • The Count Us in 2020 website just posted a number of Get Out the Count Factsheets in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Khmer, Punjabi, Tagalog, Vietnamese.
  • Count All Kids
  • Help, but Don’t Interfere! The Census Bureau issued this four-page guide about what we can and can’t do to support the 2020 Census.
  • 2020 Census Outreach Material
  • Why the Census Matter to Young AAPIs
  • Language Assistance in the 2020 Census
  • Faith Toolkit (2020 Census Faith Council) 
  • Libraries Guide to the 2020 Census. (American Library Association)
  • Washington Nonprofits Toolkit
  • Washington State Agency Toolkit
  • The Bureau now has available online its Census 101 factsheet in Census 101 in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, French, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, with more languages coming.
  • ​Frauds and Tips Sheet:

Video Library 
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