"The concept of the census is simple, yet its repercussions are huge when it comes to figuring out where resources, political power and activism focus should be apportioned."
M4EJ Staff; Maxim Tamarov
Like many before it, the 2020 census will have an outsized effect on environmental justice work.
The census is sent out every 10 years and counts everyone living in the United States and its five territories. This headcount is used to apportion hundreds of billions of dollars that go towards schools, clinics, medicaid, medicare, SNAP, highway planning, wildlife restoration and various other programs. It is also used for congressional apportionments and for seeing where vulnerable communities live, how dense said communities are and how close they are to hazardous wastes or Superfund sites.
Cara Brumfield and Jae June Lee, policy analysts at the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality (GCPI), are the authors of a myriad of fact sheets on the ways census data can be used. According to Brumfield and Lee, the census is the “statistical backbone” of the United States.
“The decennial census provides a lot of granular data,” Lee said. “A lot of the different databases that city planners use, climate justice activists use, all these different people use — the decennial census is really just the base of it.”
One such climate justice activist is Kerene Tayloe, director of federal legislative affairs at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. WE ACT is a nonprofit founded and based in Harlem. For 31 years, WE ACT has focused on ensuring that low-income communities and communities of color are included in decision-making processes for environmental health policy. WE ACT uses census data to show how agency, company or investor decisions will impact the area’s present communities.
Take the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). WE ACT has been working on combating the urban heat island effect — built up areas that are hotter than nearby rural areas — in northern Manhattan. Looking at weather patterns data and overlapping them with census data shows WE ACT where the heat island effect is most prevalent, which is disproportionately in communities of color. That data is then used to justify subsidizing the cost of air conditioners through LIHEAP for those affected homes.
The history of the census in this country dates back to the Constitution, which laid out that representatives and direct taxes would be apportioned based on the population. The questions asked on the census itself have changed over time, often sparking controversy. Cue the debacle this time around involving a question that would have asked respondents whether or not they were U.S. citizens.
Although after the Supreme Court ruling in Department of Commerce v. New York the citizenship question was removed, the damage, according to Brumfield, was already done.
“There is a lot of fear and distrust of the government that has been stoked among immigrant communities and communities of color, including but not limited to the proposed citizenship question,” Brumfield said.
And there are other factors that contribute to the concern of groups like the GCPI that there will be an undercount this time around.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has forced the Census Bureau to postpone its field operations, NPR reported. On March 20, the bureau announced it is extending the end of counting for the census from July 31 to Aug. 14. Officials have said that the sooner households fill out a form on their own, the fewer door knockers the bureau will have to send out to visit unresponsive homes in person during the ongoing public health crisis.
Right now the self-response rate is about 60.6 percent, according to Lee. In 2010, the final self-response rate was 66.5 percent. What really hurts, Lee explained, is that the follow-up operations that would normally round out the total census response (such as the Nonresponse Followup Operation) are in danger this time around due to health risks posed by the coronavirus.
When an undercount happens, districts get drawn larger. A larger district means fewer representatives and funding per resident, because districts are in part based on an area’s population.
The concept of the census is simple, yet its repercussions are huge when it comes to figuring out where resources, political power and activism focus should be apportioned. When it comes to ensuring environmental justice, the census counts.
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