Mar 31, 2020 3 min read

During the last census 10 years ago, some 25,000 children across Pennsylvania weren’t counted. Kari King, CEO and president of Pennsylvania Partnership for Children, said on Monday that the omission of those children from the tally meant the loss of about $44 million in federal funding for the state.

In a conference call organized by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., King described efforts by her nonprofit to ensure fewer children go uncounted in the 2020 Census, which is now underway. The COVID-19 pandemic is complicating King’s and other community advocates’ goals of a complete count of children and other crucial populations, even while the U.S. Census Bureau and other government agencies limit in-person contact with the public and take other steps to protect against the spread of the contagious disease.

For example, in previous surveys, schools and day cares sent information about the importance of the census home with the children under their care – something that isn’t an option when those places are closed.

“We’ve been working to ensure that all of our stakeholder partners that are involved in our coalition – the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, teachers unions, other interested groups – are aware of that,” King said. She added that those partners “are starting to figure out for remote education, to the extent possible, making sure that that awareness is still driven out as much as we can electronically over the coming days.”

Earlier this month, the bureau said it was pushing the end of window for people to respond to questionnaires and other deadlines later. The agency has put field work, such as door-to-door followup with households that didn’t respond, on hold for the time being.

So far, 33.1% of the households in the country have responded to the mailings that went out earlier this month with instructions on how to complete the questionnaire. Pennsylvania is slightly higher, with 34.1% responding – exactly the same as Washington County’s. In Greene, 26.2% of households responded so far.

“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Pennsylvania is doing better than the national average on the count right now,” said Norman Bristol Colón, an official from the state Department of Community and Economic Development who leads the state’s Census 2020 Complete Count Commission, convened last year.

Colón said the state allocated the commission $4 million in the state budget. The commission has launched an advertising and social-media campaign intended to boost participation statewide. He said that campaign, which cost about $2.5 million, is continuing despite the pandemic, with messages on billboards, in newspapers, TV and radio stations and in newsletters that serve ethnic communities in the state, among other platforms.

“We have been able to continue to do what we have been doing on the media side,” Colón said.

Casey said the COVID-19 outbreak illustrates the importance of the census, whose results inform how federal funds are divided among states and local governments for myriad programs.

“We know in a crisis like this, for example, how important the Medicaid program is, and the supplemental nutritional assistance program is, in light of the horror of this virus,” Casey said. “So (it’s) all the more reason why the census has to be a complete and accurate count of everyone.”