President-Elect Santos: Ending Census Count Early Hurts Nation

In reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the administration to end census field operations, American Statistical Association President-elect Robert Santos released the following statement:

An early ending to the 2020 census data collection hurts our nation, our democracy, and especially the hard-to-count communities of color. A rushed census count can only be achieved by compromising data quality. We are hopeful that the statutory deadline will be extended so the US Census Bureau is afforded the five months originally planned for the quality-control phase of the decennial census. And I reiterate the ASA call for the administration to apply the 2020 Census Quality Indicators to decennial data starting immediately so the American public can assess its fitness for use.

Santos’ last statement refers to the ASA’s October 13 release of the 2020 Census Quality Indicators, prepared by a blue-ribbon panel of census experts concerned about 2020 Census data quality and the lack of transparency and measures of quality traditionally provided by the US Census Bureau.