NEW: I spoke with 13 current & former employees at the Census Bureau's local #2020Census offices. With the shortened schedule piled on top of the pandemic & tech problems, many are worried there's not enough time to complete the count safely & accurately:
npr.org/2020/08/11/901…
npr.org/2020/08/11/901…
2. I interviewed 11 of the 13 current/former Census Bureau employees I spoke with on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation for speaking out.
Their perspectives underline the array of difficulties confronting the #2020Census right now.
In their own words...
Their perspectives underline the array of difficulties confronting the #2020Census right now.
In their own words...
3. "There's just not enough time to do all the work that needs to be done," one office operations supervisor told me.
4. "It just doesn't seem logical to push this with all of these odds against us. You're looking at all this and you're just thinking, 'Are we working on the same team?' " a census field supervisor in Florida told me. "It does not feel like we have the same mission in mind."
5. "People are afraid. They don't want to get sick for a temporary job," the census field supervisor in Florida also said.
6. "The whole safety thing was way down below the priority to get the job done," a former enumerator, who recently quit after door knocking in the Midwest, told me.
7. "We're just sending bodies out regardless of whether they're ready or not," a census field supervisor working in the Mid-Atlantic told me.
8. "We do not have enough time to hand-hold every single person," an office operations supervisor who specializes in IT told me. "Most enumerators are retired. Sometimes this is their first smartphone. They're more used to flip phones."
8. "There's so much that isn't right about this," a census field supervisor in California told me. "I know for the next 10 years, it won't be an accurate count. I don't know what we can do about it."
9. Many census workers say that while they can still carry their equipment and badges, they are dedicated to knocking on as many doors as they can to try to make sure that the #2020Census data are as complete as possible.
10. "One more is better than zero," the census field supervisor working in the Mid-Atlantic told me. "I would take that any given day."
