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The Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center has updated its analysis of 2010 Census “participation rates” through the 3rd week of Mail-out/Mail-back and Update/Leave operations by key variables, including race and Hispanic origin (ethnicity), using its Census 2010 Hard To Count Interactive Mapping Website.

This week’s report (details here; full report [PDF] here) includes a new analysis of improvement over 2000 Census response rates, for counties and tracts (city by city).

Key findings include:

• More than 10% of the nation’s counties (427 of them) have exceeded their 2000 participation rate by 5% or more.
• Nearly 10% of the nation’s tracts (6,093 of them) exceeded their 2000 participation rate by 5% or more.
• In the nation’s largest cities, “high achieving” tracts tended to have higher hard-to-count (HTC) scores, with a median score of 74 (the Census Bureau considers tracts with HTC scores of 76+ to be “very hard to count”).
• Census participation at the neighborhood level continues to be correlated with race and ethnicity, especially in census tracts with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic populations. However, among large cities, Detroit continued to show the opposite trend, with lower participation rates in tracts with higher percentages of White population compared to those with higher Black populations.
• In Miami, Newark, NJ and New York City, tract-level Hispanic population concentrations continued to have the opposite effect on census participation than the national pattern. In these three cities, participation rates tended to be higher in tracts with greater Hispanic populations. Nationally, tracts with greater Hispanic populations tended to have lower participation rates.

The analysis continues to track the correlation between tract level hard-to-count (HTC) scores and mail response. The Center’s analyses for Week 1 and Week 2 of the Census Bureau’s “Take 10” participation rate challenge is posted at http://www.urbanresearch.org/resources/census2010participation.

The Mail-out/Mail-back is winding down over the next week; after that, the Census Bureau will begin to compile the addresses that census takers must visit in the massive door-to-door operation (Nonresponse Follow-Up), scheduled for May 1 – July 10. The Census Bureau might be able to remove some “late mail returns” and telephone responses received in the last weeks of April from the lists to be used in Nonresponse Follow-Up but cannot guarantee that census takers will not visit those households.

More information, contact:

Steven Romalewski (CUNY), 212-817-2033

Terri Ann Lowenthal (FCI), 203-353-4364