Montana census resumes operations

Montana census workers are some of the first in the nation able to resume on-the-ground operations, as the U.S. Census Bureau scrambles to get an accurate count of the population in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state’s census workers were given the green light by the U.S. Census Bureau to resume limited “update leave” operations in light of the state’s low numbers of COVID-19 cases. According to a press release sent earlier this week by the bureau, “Update leave is a census operation that delivers census questionnaires directly to you in mainly rural and remote areas of the country.”

Restarting such work should help the state gain ground in its self-response rate. Montana’s self-response rate sits at 48.8%, compared to a national rate of just over 57.3%, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The “self-response rate” is the percentage of households who have filled out their census form after being contacted by the census – either through the phone, in-person or online. This is the first census ever conducted with an online option.

Joshua Manning, media specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau, said he expects Montana will have a much higher self-response rate “in the next few weeks to a month” as workers deliver physical census forms.

Manning said many people “want the paper form because that’s what they’ve done before,” while some Montanans do not have internet access to fill out the online form.

In fact, 15% of Montanans live somewhere where they will not receive census instructions until a census employee visits their door with paper forms. Nationally, the rate is 5%. These are mostly people who live in extremely rural areas or tribal reservations.

This is one reason why Montana’s most rural counties currently have the poorest response rates. The state’s lowest self-response rate is in Petroleum County, at 11.2%, while Big Horn County is at 12.7%.

Meanwhile, countries with larger towns and urban centers have the highest response rate in the state. Yellowstone County – home of Billings – leads the state with a 65.8% rate, with Helena-based Lewis and Clark County next at 62%. Missoula County is right behind at 61.3%.

Flathead County has a self-response rate of 47.3%, below the state average. Lincoln County is at 28.4%, Glacier at 21.5% and Lake at 34.2%.

The state is currently ranked 45th in the country out of 50 states and Washington, D.C. The six states below Montana – Vermont, Wyoming, Maine, New Mexico, West Virginia and Alaska – face similar challenges to Montana, being predominantly rural states.

Despite having some ground to gain, Manning said Montana is in better shape than some other states. New Mexico, for instance, has a lower response rate than Montana yet is still not in a place where it has controlled the spread of COVID-19 enough to resume operations.

“We’re not going to go out willy-nilly to make this pandemic worse,” he said.

The current deadline is in October, and Manning said he is not sure if it will be extended. But the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 means census employees are working against the clock to get an accurate count. Manning said they are currently two months behind their original timeline.

The big prize for Montana following the 2020 Census would be an additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. But that is not a given, especially if the state is undercounted.

“Just because Montana gets over one million people doesn’t mean it’ll get an additional representative,” Manning said.

Manning pointed to the case of Utah, which after the 2000 Census fell just 856 people short of earning an additional seat in Congress.

“Montana is competing with every state in the country for that [seat]” in 2020, he said.

That is in addition to the federal funding, including highway funds and Medicare funding, that is allocated based on census data.

Manning said, “this is a snapshot that lasts a decade so we have to get it right.”

Reporter Colin Gaiser may be reached at cgaiser@dailyinterlake.com