Ending census count early is a mistake that will hurt communities

Buried under the flood of information about the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s economic struggles was news of a policy switch that puts the accuracy of the 2020 Census very much in doubt. Overruling the views of the Census Bureau’s professional staff, the Trump administration has rashly declared that the on-the-ground counting of people will end Sept. 30, a month earlier than planned. The administration also has announced that it will cut the time taken to analyze the data and ensuring its accuracy by 40%, from five months to three.

This is an extremely bad decision, and we are deeply concerned that this will lead to a severe undercounting in many communities — from big cities and suburbs to rural communities.

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Source: The Baltimore Sun, submitted by Nikki Highsmith Vernick, president and CEO of the Horizon Foundation and member of MPN's Board of Directors, and Mike Mitchell, executive director of Foreign-Born Information and Referral Network.