For families in West Virginia, which has had especially sharp drops in child poverty over the past three decades, the shift has played out in ways not fully captured by statistics.
A new trove of memos and emails suggest that the plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census aimed to cause an undercount that would favor Republicans.
A survey indicated that census takers in 2020 undercounted the number of people in six states, mostly in the South, and overcounted in eight others. Covid is among many possible reasons.
The most contentious census in memory will also be the slowest to release detailed statistics for businesses and governments to use. Blame it (partly) on the pandemic.
Technology advances forced the Census Bureau to use sweeping measures to ensure privacy for respondents. The ensuing debate goes to the heart of what a census is.