The decennial Census has kept us busy this spring, especially as the government released the daily tally of participation. Today’s the last day to mail back forms, so it feels like time to take a breath and recap some of the work my excellent colleagues have done the last few weeks:
– Stories on states and counties beginning to top their response rates from 2000, on hurdles to participation and Census jobs going unfilled.
– Maps tracking participation and an interactive where you can search rates by state, county or locality.
– A neat interactive explaining how Congress is reapportioned after every Census.
More to come as Census workers fan out to households that didn’t respond. But, of course, this is nothing compared to the deluge we’ll face next spring when Census turns on the firehose of the actual data.
Filed under: Census by Anthony on Apr 16, 2010
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This week, my USA TODAY colleague Paul Overberg and I launched a simple database application to display the Census 2010 mail participation rates for states, counties and 27,000 cities and towns.
Through late April, the Census Bureau is updating the data each weekday. They’ve launched their own interactive map and offer the data in CSV or double-pipe-delimited format (a new one for us). We didn’t want to duplicate the bureau’s map, but we did want to offer something Census isn’t: the ability to quickly find and rank geographies.
Here’s more on how it came together:
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Filed under: Census by Anthony on Mar 27, 2010
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The Pew Research Center’s Census 2010 workshop Jan. 21 featured two panels to help journalists and analysts prep for the decennial count of America and the data dump to follow. Two of my USA TODAY colleagues and I sat in. Paul Overberg, a fellow database editor, led one of the panels.
Pew staff recorded the sessions and is sharing some of the material on its Census site. Here are some of my notes for those who couldn’t make it:
‘Conducting Census 2010′
Presented with the Washington Statistical Society and D.C.-American Association of Public Opinion Research
Robert Groves, director, U.S. Census Bureau
Constance Citro, director, Committee on National Statistics
Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer, Pew Research Center
Joseph Salvo, director, Population Division, NYC Dept. of City Planning
Scott Keeter, director of survey research, Pew Research Center
Groves led with a broad description of the planning and operational aspects of the count:
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Filed under: Census by Anthony on Jan 23, 2010
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