[HN Gopher] 2020 Census Apportionment Results
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       2020 Census Apportionment Results
        
       Author : kochb
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2021-04-26 20:16 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.census.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.census.gov)
        
       | sethbannon wrote:
       | New York lost a congressional seat by falling 89 residents short.
       | Given that the response window fell during the peak COVID crisis
       | for NYC, it's hard to imagine it didn't have a negative impact on
       | response rate.
        
         | mc32 wrote:
         | Weren't many places affected by the pandemic and not just NYC?
         | I guess you could argue given their raw numbers it affected
         | them more.
        
           | jonny_eh wrote:
           | NY was certainly hit harder earlier than other states, and
           | during the census window.
        
           | sethbannon wrote:
           | Households received their census cards March 12-20 and
           | "Census Day" -- when there was a big marketing push to get
           | folks to respond -- was April 1. That was right when NYC was
           | getting slammed, which happened before the rest of the
           | country. Census workers then sent folks physically out to try
           | and reach non-responding households, but that's super hard to
           | do.
        
             | dragonwriter wrote:
             | > That was right when NYC was getting slammed, which
             | happened before the rest of the country.
             | 
             | Except California, but, mostly, yes.
        
         | betterunix2 wrote:
         | I see 89 residents and immediately think less of COVID and more
         | of the Trump administration's effort to scare certain
         | demographics off. The results were tainted by an administration
         | that acted in bad faith.
        
           | bpodgursky wrote:
           | Well, the absolute easiest way to gain 89 residents would
           | have been to let the YIMBYs build one more highrise in
           | Brooklyn.
        
         | contrahax wrote:
         | I think there is a case for the opposite trend as well -
         | anecdotally I and many others I know moved from NY to another
         | state after responding to the census as a resident of NY. From
         | what I observed (and when I responded) most of the census
         | outreach in NYC was early in 2020 before the pandemic really
         | hit. USPS published some data using change of address
         | information that shows NY lost a good number of residents
         | during 2020, how many of those responded to the census before
         | or after they moved is a toss up though. No conclusion, just
         | adding some context.
        
           | codezero wrote:
           | Even in California when we saw folks moving away I had a
           | census worker on foot knocking door to door trying to ask
           | about who lived in the various apartments - and at the time I
           | know a lot of folks had moved away even if temporarily.
        
           | CameronNemo wrote:
           | Yeah this is such a cluster. Makes you think that maybe we
           | should not be doing point in time counts every ten years.
           | That can have a huge impact on entire generations of people.
           | American Community Surveys run far more often, showing that
           | we can potentially change our ways.
        
             | danso wrote:
             | Sure, but (ignoring the Constitutional decennial mandate,
             | which also requires Census subjects to be defined 3 years
             | before the actual counting [0]) what's a cost-effective
             | alternative? The budget for the 2020 Census was $7+ billion
             | [1].
             | 
             | And while the ACS annual surveys are considered accurate,
             | what would be the right period for changing Congressional
             | seat counts? It obviously can't be annual (since House
             | terms are every 2 years).
             | 
             | [0] https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-
             | census/abo...
             | 
             | [1] https://www.census.gov/about/budget.html
        
             | xnx wrote:
             | It's also astounding that this is the standard method when
             | Apple/Google/Facebook/AT&T/Verizon could trivially give an
             | instantaneous and probably more accurate count.
        
               | economusty wrote:
               | So I change my Facebook profile and get counted as a
               | resident? Is that what you are suggesting?
        
               | danso wrote:
               | None of those companies are likely to uniformly count all
               | of the things that the Census purports to do, such as
               | race/ethnicity and housing status.
        
         | keepkalm wrote:
         | AOC could lose her district and opt to run against Schumer
         | instead of staying in the House. Payback for AOC beating
         | another incumbent Democrat that ends in her beating Schumer for
         | US Senate.
         | 
         | That is the most interesting thing that could happen at least.
        
       | 1270018080 wrote:
       | I'm interested to see how Montana will be drawn. I didn't think
       | I'd ever see that happen.
        
         | jlangemeier wrote:
         | Perfect world, it probably has a jagged split north to south
         | drawing through Great Falls down to Billings/Hardin.
         | 
         | With this year's state legislature and Governor Body-slam;
         | they'll try some stupid ass bs drawing down the rockies along
         | the I15 corridor and splitting the two major dem hubs in the
         | state (Bozeman and Missoula) rendering it set up perfectly for
         | 2 republican representatives from here to eternity.
        
       | seneca wrote:
       | The most important bit:
       | 
       | > Texas will gain two seats in the House of Representatives, five
       | states will gain one seat each (Colorado, Florida, Montana, North
       | Carolina, and Oregon), seven states will lose one seat each
       | (California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
       | and West Virginia), and the remaining states' number of seats
       | will not change based on the 2020 Census.
        
       | sethbannon wrote:
       | For those wanting to know state congressional seat gains and
       | losses...
       | 
       | Gaining 2 seats: Texas
       | 
       | Gaining 1 seat: Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina,
       | Oregon
       | 
       | Losing 1 seat: California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio,
       | Pennsylvania, West Virginia
        
         | swyx wrote:
         | how does this work for congresspeople already in those seats?
         | does this only take effect next congress?
        
           | mbauman wrote:
           | State governments re-draw the lines. Sometimes they try to
           | preserve existing districts and existing constituents for
           | existing congresspeople, and sometimes they intentionally
           | obliterate them (based on where the congressperson's house
           | is). Precisely how they do so varies by state.
        
           | protomyth wrote:
           | If you keep in mind that those seats are for the current term
           | only, then it makes it a bit easier. For the purpose of the
           | 2022 election, there is no one in those seats since the
           | election process has not started.
           | 
           | The state legislators of each state will redistrict based on
           | the census numbers (having the same number of seats doesn't
           | mean the district doesn't change). Then the primary /
           | election process starts with candidates declaring their
           | intention to run for one of those seats. It is possible that
           | two sitting Representatives will run for the same seat due to
           | redistricting.
           | 
           | This is where you are going to see the preferences of the
           | majority party and what Representatives they like. A
           | nationally popular Representative might have their district
           | removed and absorbed into two or more adjoining districts.
           | This is often done when the Representative is more trouble to
           | the local party then useful.
        
           | tharne wrote:
           | Yes, this would impact the next election cycle, occurring in
           | 2022, and the effects would first be seen in the congress
           | sworn in in January of 2023.
           | 
           | The states with changes in seats are responsible for the
           | redistricting. What this means in practice is that in a state
           | losing one seat, one district will disappear and the map gets
           | redrawn. Then you'll typically have a primary or a general
           | election where both candidates are incumbents. If both
           | incumbents are in the same party, they'll face off in the
           | primary for that party, if they're in different parties
           | they'll face off in the general election. Alternatively, one
           | incumbent may choose to retire.
        
             | dragonwriter wrote:
             | > The states with changes in seats are responsible for the
             | redistricting.
             | 
             | So are the states _without_ changes; no net changes in
             | seats doesn't mean no internal population movement that
             | would render existing districts no longer sufficiently
             | equal to satisfy equal representation (the exception being
             | states that have no change in seats _and_ exactly one
             | seat.)
        
           | bkjelden wrote:
           | The states will draw new district maps based on the new
           | census data for each state, as well as accounting for any
           | seat gains or loses. The rules for drawing those maps differ
           | from state to state.
           | 
           | In the states that lose a seat, it depends. Sometimes two
           | current members will face off for the new district that most
           | closely resembles their two prior districts. Sometimes one of
           | the members will just decide to retire.
        
           | shadowgovt wrote:
           | The changes will come into play as of 2023's Congress.
        
       | thestoicattack wrote:
       | House seat changes by state:                   (+2) TX
       | (+1) CO, FL, MT, NC, OR         (-1) CA, IL, MI, NY, OH, PA, WV
       | (0) everyone else
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | elliekelly wrote:
       | > Puerto Rico's resident population was 3,285,874, down 11.8%
       | from 3,725,789 in the 2010 Census.
       | 
       | Is there any explanation for this?
        
         | oh_sigh wrote:
         | Massively devastating natural events + crappy economy + local
         | governmental corruption + freedom of movement into the US = a
         | lot of people leaving.
         | 
         | Honestly, the fact that even more people don't flee that island
         | for mainland US is a testament to the importance people place
         | on their "homeland".
        
         | dragonwriter wrote:
         | Everyone is pointing to Hurricane Maria, which is a big factor,
         | but even before that there was a major financial crisis
         | creating substantial misery.
        
         | MattGaiser wrote:
         | Hurricane drove a lot of people away.
         | 
         | https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/research/data-center/resear...
        
         | exegete wrote:
         | Hurricane Maria was pretty devastating and the lack of Federal
         | aid exacerbated it. I imagine people left after that.
        
           | darksaints wrote:
           | Another one of Trump's short sighted policy backfires. In his
           | effort to paint Puerto Rico as a failed and corrupt liberal
           | state, he denied them aid, causing half a million American
           | citizens to move from a place where they couldn't vote in
           | federal elections to places where they could.
        
         | pavlov wrote:
         | Hurricane Maria in 2017 must be partially responsible?
         | 
         | Property damage (estimated at $90B) and loss of economic
         | opportunity surely forced many people to move to the mainland.
        
       | deanCommie wrote:
       | Don't forget - the 2020 census was interfered with for expressly
       | political gains.
       | 
       | That seems relevant to any discussion if it's outcomes. While
       | states themselves are not nearly as red/blue at the district
       | level as they might be in the aggregate, it is absolutely worth
       | noting that a net 6 additional congressional seats are going from
       | "Blue" states to "Red" states.
       | 
       | The actual impact of the census may be even bigger than this -
       | for all we knew the REVERSE trend should have occurred as the
       | country's demographics shift.
       | 
       | * https://publicintegrity.org/politics/system-failure/trump-ob...
       | 
       | * https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/15/trump-...
       | 
       | * https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/08/07/trumps-...
        
         | pianom4n wrote:
         | Red states gaining seats is in no way incompatible with
         | demographic changes. Red states become less red via population
         | growth could fully explain this effect, and seems like a
         | completely plausible explanation.
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | Also 6 electoral college votes.
        
           | deanCommie wrote:
           | Wait is that true? Is a democratic president ever going to be
           | elected again?
        
       | MattGaiser wrote:
       | Rhode Island's 2nd congressional district survives for another
       | decade.
        
       | rossdavidh wrote:
       | Spare a thought for the census bureau folks, who in an incredibly
       | stressful year and in an incredibly polarized political climate,
       | had to nonetheless get the job done and try to release the data
       | on time and keep their cool and remain objective, all the while
       | knowing that their best case scenario is nobody really thinks
       | about how they did it. Not an easy job.
        
       | standardUser wrote:
       | The slowing of immigration is starting to make our falling
       | birthrates more noticeable. We'll need to see a surge in
       | immigration in the coming years to avoid the aging problem facing
       | most other wealthy countries.
       | 
       | Biden's proposed $2 trillion family plan might help if it could
       | ever get passed, but it might be too little too late. Other
       | countries have had far more extreme incentives to have kids for
       | decades and still ended up much farther down the wrong side of
       | the aging curve than we are.
       | 
       | EDIT: I appreciate the downvotes. But I wonder which you prefer:
       | higher taxes for working people, reduced benefits for the
       | elderly, or more immigrants coming to our nation of immigrants?
       | We need to pick one.
        
         | bluthru wrote:
         | We don't need immigration to feed a pyramid scheme. We need a
         | responsible level of population for what's best for our high
         | rents, congested cities, and carbon footprint.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | reducesuffering wrote:
         | Birthrates are depressed because prime child-rearing ages,
         | (22-35?) are increasingly unable to afford adequate housing and
         | health insurance. Solve those, families will feel more secure
         | and be able to live close to relatives to help out with
         | children, and the issue is much more tractable.
        
           | standardUser wrote:
           | That perspective is not compatible with what we know about
           | birthrates in other developed nations. More highly educated
           | societies exhibit lower birthrates, more or less universally.
           | Even within the US, people with more education have children
           | later and fewer children, even though they also have higher
           | incomes and better insurance, etc.
           | 
           | In many European countries, families are given considerable
           | support and incentives far beyond what American families
           | receive, yet birthrates still continue to drop.
        
           | ArkanExplorer wrote:
           | And if you increase immigration, you increase labour supply,
           | and demand for housing - reducing wages and increasing cost
           | of living, which negatively impacts fertility.
           | 
           | The fundamental problem in the USA is the broken healthcare
           | and pension system, which allocates too many resources to
           | baby boomers and unfairly burdens younger workers.
        
             | standardUser wrote:
             | The fertility issue is not a unique American problem. It
             | has been happening for decades in nearly every developed
             | country, and it is consistently observed when populations
             | become more highly educated. The reason it has hit most
             | developed nations harder than the US is because the US
             | historically has much higher immigration rates than other
             | nations, and immigrants tend to skew younger.
        
       | Rafuino wrote:
       | Now the Q is how will the districts be drawn to make those two
       | new TX districts reliably red, eh?
        
         | tenpies wrote:
         | Probably in much the same way that the seats in the other
         | states will be re-drawn to make them as Blue as possible, so it
         | will not even out, but at least Texas will remain Texas.
         | 
         | That said, given what the Democrats are doing, seats may be
         | entirely inconsequential going forward. This may all be a huge
         | waste of time.
        
           | skystarman wrote:
           | Democrats are committed to the idea that politicians
           | shouldn't choose their voters. They have fought in court over
           | it and the SCOTUS decided gerrymandering is fine, even many
           | egregious examples.
           | 
           | The GOP has always been on board with this. Why I'll never
           | understand. The only excuse you ever get is "Dems do it too!"
           | 
           | As if Democrats should just lay down arms and not participate
           | in the practice and let the GOP gerrymander every state to
           | oblivion out of principle or something.
        
           | tolbish wrote:
           | Do you mean in terms of granting DC and Puerto Rico
           | statehood, or reallocating representatives based on
           | population?
        
       | exegete wrote:
       | Is it time to expand the House? It feels like as the population
       | grows we shouldn't dilute and move around representation.
        
         | pg_bot wrote:
         | If you can convince 27 more states to ratify the congressional
         | apportionment amendment you can.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Am...
        
           | Aloisius wrote:
           | To be clear, one does not need an amendment to increase the
           | size of the House.
           | 
           | Changing the size of the House can be done through normal
           | legislation after a Census.
        
             | pg_bot wrote:
             | Yeah, but it's extremely unlikely to happen that way
        
               | AnimalMuppet wrote:
               | In particular, such legislation would have to pass the
               | House. Each representative in the House can decide: "Do I
               | want to be one of 435 representatives, and represent a
               | significant number of people, or do I want to be one of
               | some larger number of representatives, and have
               | correspondingly less power, both in DC and at home?"
               | Given that calculus, I'd be surprised if the House passed
               | any such thing.
        
         | nickff wrote:
         | One issue with increasing the number of representatives is that
         | you make each individual member less powerful, and consequently
         | centralize power in the parties (and the executive).
        
           | betwixthewires wrote:
           | I don't think I agree with this. Suppose there were 1 million
           | representatives, each with ~330 constituents. This is
           | untenable, sure, but imagine this were the case. Would a body
           | like that even be capable of having votes on party lines?
           | Would a body like that even be capable of operating as a two
           | party system?
           | 
           | Then, the academic cases, wouldn't a body like that make it
           | more likely to have other parties have a larger role in
           | national politics?
           | 
           | I'd say since the house is supposed to be a democratic
           | institution, the only one in the federal government, making
           | individual members less powerful is a _good_ thing. If the
           | body is supposed to represent the population directly, the
           | less powerful each individual is in the body the less
           | oligarchic that body will be.
        
           | bbatha wrote:
           | Unlike the senate where all the power rests in Joe Manchins
           | hands
        
             | tharne wrote:
             | In a senate that's split 50-50, Joe Manchin has exactly as
             | much power as every other Senator. Right now he's just the
             | only one willing to use it.
        
             | CameronNemo wrote:
             | The Senate is so different from the house that I don't
             | think it is worth it to make a comparison. Much better to
             | compare to other legislatures for large population nation
             | states, like Canada, Mexico, Brazil, India, Australia, and
             | Nigeria.
        
         | 1270018080 wrote:
         | Anti-democratic principles and minority rule are baked into the
         | constitution. Plus, with one party actively benefiting from it,
         | it's not going to happen any time soon. But yes, expanding the
         | house would be the right thing to do.
        
         | a-posteriori wrote:
         | Wouldn't adding incremental representatives to the house
         | "dilute" representation regardless? I would argue that this
         | isn't a dilution of anyone's representation, it's a re-
         | weighting of representatives to a more representative
         | distribution based on underlying demographic movement over the
         | last 10 years.
        
           | betterunix2 wrote:
           | The number of representatives makes it hard to fairly
           | apportion the seats. Montana went from 1 representative for
           | 1M people to 2 for 1M, meaning each should represent about
           | 500k people. Meanwhile in my district in NJ over 700k people
           | are represented by one person. It was unfair before, when
           | Montanans had too few representatives, and it is just as
           | unfair now, when they have too many (compared to NJ). More
           | representatives would improve the granularity and make the
           | system (somewhat) fairer.
        
             | tomp wrote:
             | If improving granularity is the goal, wouldn't it make even
             | more sense to have fractional votes? After all, there's no
             | real reason why each representative's vote should count
             | equally...
        
               | maxerickson wrote:
               | It's sort of nice to be able to reason about votes in a
               | straightforward way, and you'd have even worse social
               | dynamics if some members are literally more powerful
               | inside the chamber than others.
        
         | betwixthewires wrote:
         | Yes, and it's time to solve that problem once and for all with
         | this
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Am...
         | 
         | Interestingly this amendment was passed by congress with the
         | bill of rights with no expiration and is still waiting before
         | the States for ratification. So it does not require Congress to
         | act, only many of the states. Another amendment passed with the
         | bill of rights was ratified in 1992.
         | 
         | It would guarantee that all congressional seats on congress
         | represent an equal number of people, thus making the house of
         | representatives a truly democratic institution. It would make
         | house representation a more local enterprise and reduce the
         | effectiveness of gerrymandering. The downsides are of course
         | that there would be thousands of representatives and the
         | capitol would then need to be rebuilt or some other mechanism
         | created for house and joint sessions.
        
         | betterunix2 wrote:
         | A better plan would be to change to a proportional system in
         | the House, where seats are allocated to parties according to
         | national vote totals. State lines are arbitrarily drawn and do
         | not actually represent the actual divisions among Americans.
         | The fact that a representative from a densely populated urban
         | district represents more people than a representative from a
         | sparsely populated rural state is inherently undemocratic (this
         | is even worse in the Senate). We do not need more
         | representatives, we need better representation.
        
           | the_lonely_road wrote:
           | This would violate one of the central promises of the union
           | which was that the large populous areas would not be able to
           | dictate to the smaller regions and would instead be forced to
           | compromise with them. We seem poised to start expanding the
           | union again in the coming decades. Imagine how much more
           | difficult it would be to get smaller Mexican states or
           | central American countries to agree to join the union if they
           | believed they would have no say in running their local after
           | doing so.
           | 
           | I understand where you are coming from as the US is so
           | homogenous now thanks to 250 years of interstate population
           | movement that the delineations seem arbitrary and unfair, but
           | they were very distinct separate regions once upon a time and
           | looking forward the regions we hope to bring into our union
           | are more different than the average American than similar so
           | these same protections will be critical to the effort.
        
             | betterunix2 wrote:
             | That is the unconvincing argument for the (extremely)
             | undemocratic Senate. The House is supposed to reflect the
             | will of the people which is why we apportion
             | representatives according to the states' populations; the
             | only compromise was that no state would receive less than
             | one representative.
             | 
             | Really though, appealing the logic used 250 years ago is
             | not very convincing. We have different concerns today than
             | we did in in the 18th century. We are not trying to
             | convince a ragtag group of states to form a union, the
             | union has formed and is unlikely to disintegrate. Today we
             | have a problem of bad representation in Congress, and it
             | has been getting worse and worse with each passing year. It
             | is not just about state borders, it is also a problem of
             | how districts are drawn within states, and a proportional
             | system would address that as well (why should we ever talk
             | about gerrymandering? it is an artificial problem that can
             | easily be solved). Year after year a majority of Americans
             | have watched as people the party they voted against somehow
             | took power, kept power, and received just enough power to
             | prevent widely supported initiatives from going anywhere.
             | The trend has been getting worse and worse as Republicans
             | from sparsely populated states have become more and more
             | aggressive at pressing their structural advantage. That
             | needs to be addressed before people start questioning the
             | value of democracy itself.
        
           | betwixthewires wrote:
           | This is a terrible idea and let me tell you why.
           | 
           | First, it puts the balance in the house in the hands of the
           | campaign managers for president (or whichever "vote totals"
           | you would prefer to go by) second, it entrenches the 2 party
           | system as a de jure institution. Third, while districts are
           | drawn very much arbitrarily (and in many cases against the
           | interests of the people in them a la gerrymandering) people
           | _do_ have more in common with neighbors than simple party
           | members from the other side of the country. A republican and
           | a democrat in the 6th district have more in common than two
           | republicans, one from Maine and one from Louisiana. Your
           | proposal eliminates representation of community interests and
           | elevates party interest above all else. It also severely
           | damages the check the house can have on the president since
           | whichever party wins the presidency also wins the house.
           | 
           | A better solution is this solution https://en.wikipedia.org/w
           | iki/Congressional_Apportionment_Am... thankfully it has
           | already been passed by congress and is awaiting state
           | ratification. It would ensure that each representative
           | represents the same number of people but it would still
           | preserve community interest representation and probably
           | strengthen it and make party interest an afterthought in the
           | house.
        
         | vinay427 wrote:
         | Personally, I say yes. The US is a huge outlier among OECD
         | nations [1] and this definitely shows in the connection and
         | level of interaction people feel to their representatives, at
         | least based on my experience living in both the US and a
         | country with a far lower ratio.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.vox.com/2018/6/4/17417452/congress-
         | representatio...
        
           | tharne wrote:
           | It's not such an easy decision. Sure if you have more reps,
           | each constituent arguably has more access. The flip side is
           | that they have more access to a less powerful rep. If you had
           | 10,000 people in congress, sure it'd be a lot easier to get
           | in touch with one of them, but 1 person in a group of 10,000
           | doesn't have much influence, so how much is that interaction
           | really worth?
           | 
           | Even at 435, unless your rep is a senior member with some
           | important committee assignments and they happen to be in the
           | majority party, getting the ear of your rep isn't worth all
           | that much.
        
             | bpodgursky wrote:
             | <opinion>
             | 
             | The real solution being to devolve more power to state
             | legislatures with on-the-ground familiarity with local
             | issues, since it's actually quite easy to get the ear of
             | your _state_ representative.
             | 
             | </opinion>
        
               | tharne wrote:
               | I think this exactly right. However, in the U.S. we have
               | been moving in precisely the opposite direction for
               | decades, centralizing power more and more at the federal
               | level. This is, in part anyway, what has turned federal
               | elections into such a bloodsport. If your side loses,
               | people who don't share your values or understand anything
               | about where you live suddenly have a big say in a lot of
               | things that affect you directly. This is true regardless
               | of your particular political affiliation.
        
             | delecti wrote:
             | The power of reps extends far beyond just passing
             | legislation, and even then, essentially all of them are on
             | _some_ committees. Lots of them (maybe even most /all?)
             | make themselves accessible to constituents to help work
             | through government bureaucracy, and a representative
             | shining a light on a constituent's issue can help things
             | get addressed. I'm not sure jumping straight to 10,000 reps
             | would necessarily be the best idea, but I think having been
             | static for the past 100 years isn't ideal either.
        
             | maxerickson wrote:
             | Power is bad.
        
             | CameronNemo wrote:
             | Getting the ear of your rep could lead to your rep getting
             | the ear of other reps, or the scruff of some federal
             | agency.
        
       | CameronNemo wrote:
       | It seems absolutely wild to me that we are using pre pandemic
       | population counts to apportion seats.
        
         | darth_avocado wrote:
         | For the next 10 years
        
           | CameronNemo wrote:
           | At least it is better than the UK. IIRC they completely
           | stopped updating their seats.
        
         | PraetorianGourd wrote:
         | The pandemic was and is horrible, but it didn't take enough
         | lives above the expected death rate to really have an
         | appreciable impact on census data. (I am not a COVID denialist,
         | we had more deaths than expected rates, it is worse than the
         | flu etc. etc.)
         | 
         | Unless you are talking about out-migration from big cities to
         | small cities, but then again I think it could be just as
         | illogical to say "lets base it off of immediate post-pandemic
         | numbers" as I would best a good many people will move _back_ to
         | the big cities.
         | 
         | That is the risk of a point-in-time count. So many external
         | factors. But generally they all cancel one another out, and
         | each point-in-time count has similar but unique circumstances
         | that in the aggregate could have an impact. Just the way these
         | counts are.
        
           | CameronNemo wrote:
           | I am explicitly concerned about the point in time nature. I
           | am glad you pointed out all of the migration anomalies, as
           | well as the future possibility for more.
           | 
           | Edit: also I would not balk at 500k deaths. There will be
           | more to come as well. That is a significant portion of the
           | voting age and likely voter populations.
        
             | PraetorianGourd wrote:
             | Especially since we are talking 10-year increments here,
             | for the pandemic to have a real impact on census stuff, it
             | would have to have killed many people _who were not
             | otherwise going to die over the next decade_. Most likely,
             | we front-loaded a lot of these expected deaths to the early
             | part of the decade. That is to say, at some point in the
             | next 10 years the census will be an accurate representation
             | of living voting-age people in the USA.
             | 
             | I didn't balk at 500k deaths. In fact, I tried to make sure
             | that nobody would accuse me of downplaying the
             | deaths/impact of the pandemic.
        
           | codezero wrote:
           | There's more to it, I had a census worker knocking on my door
           | mid pandemic and nobody answered as they went door to door.
           | 
           | The pandemic itself impacted the ability to DO the survey,
           | while also happening when certain areas experienced great
           | movements of their populations.
        
       | abeppu wrote:
       | In all the press surrounding the shortened door-to-door period,
       | as well as the legal kerfuffle about asking about citizenship, it
       | was repeatedly stressed that lower counts could also impact
       | federal funding for a range of programs.
       | 
       | I know the census is supposed to release other stats later this
       | year, but are these state-level resident counts enough to make
       | educated guesses about impacts to stuff beyond the house?
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-04-26 23:02 UTC)