Feared Census undercount threatens Kansas City amid pandemic strain
Images captured from the U.S. Census Response Rates interactive map shows the disparity in the percentage of self-responses in Jackson County (above) through the second week of April. The maps shows the ranges from low response (dark orange) to higher response (dark blue). Many Kansas City neighborhoods trail the rest of the county and are significantly behind Clay County and Johnson County, Kan., (below), in gaining self responses.
Right about now, Kansas City’s Complete Count Census teams were planning to be seriously hands-on in spurring the all-important counting of the city’s population for the 2020 Census.
The effort particularly aimed to work through those neighborhoods and populations that are historically under-counted — low income households, homeless and transient people, black and Hispanic households, English-language learners, and families with small children.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated the campaign. And the Census’ interactive Response Rates map is showing that the feared undercount among Kansas City’s lower-income neighborhoods is already being established.
Clay County’s self-response rate
Statewide, Missouri has seen 48.3% of its Census forms completed compared to a national rate of 47.1%. And overall Jackson County is not far behind at 46.3%. But severe disparities exist within the county.
A swath of Census tracts into poorer neighborhoods east of Troost and in Kansas City’s Northeast Neighborhood are far behind at around 25% completion.
The campaign is steering urgently into the social media and airwaves space, with some $675 billion at stake in annual federal funding for schools, hospitals, infrastructure and more.
Johnson County, KS’s self-response rate
Kansas City’s complete count web site estimates that $4,700 annually in federal funds are allocated per each household in Missouri. For every person not counted, the state could lose $1,272 per year. This adds up, and an undercount could mean potentially $20.5 million lost in Jackson County.
Before the pandemic, teams in the Kansas City Complete Count campaign were planning to create or join public events, setting up kiosks with tablets and laptops to help people fill out their Census. The Kansas City Public Library had a team of trainers and a growing agenda of events that came to a halt.
LINC was planning Census events to be part of community after-school gatherings.
The Health Forward Foundation and the Mid-American Regional Council are leading the complete count committee with urgency.
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“Everyone needs to be counted because if we don’t count everyone, we may not get our fair share,” Karen Dehais of Health Forward told WDAF-TV in Kansas CIty. “If we have a 1% undercount in Kansas City, we could lose $48 million in aid.”
Nationally, the Census has suspended its field operations — including the fleet of paid Census takers who sweep throughout the nation to gather up as many of the missed counts as they can.
“Of all of our worst nightmares of things that could have gone wrong with the census, we did not anticipate this set of actions," Al Fontenot of the Census Bureau told the Associated Press. “But our staff has been extremely resilient about looking for solutions."
The local Census team has also tried to send the Census message home as a learning opportunity, with curriculum it is sharing with school districts and parents to help instill the importance of the count — and to simply emphasize the bottom line: Make sure you and everyone you know is counted.
Facebook live event to spark Census campaign
Social media efforts pick up more steam this week. Mayor Quinton Lucas, Councilman Eric Bunch and retired Children’s Mercy Hospital Director of Social Services Alice Kitchen are headlining a Facebook live event with the Guadalupe Centers Thursday, April 16, at 6 p.m.
Every step along the way, the Complete Count team emphasizes that filling out the Census is simple. It can take as little as 10 minutes. Its content is available in 59 different languages. You and your information are safe. It is against the law for any Census Bureau employee to disclose or publish any census or survey information that identifies an individual or business.
The Census mailed identification codes to households in March. But if you did not get a code or do not know where it is, you can still fill out a form at my2020census.gov/
By Joe Robertson/LINC writer
