Thread by @reveal

1/ First, it was problems with government-issued tech.

Then it was complaints about repetitive work, arbitrary terminations and disorganized management.

Now, census workers across the U.S. are raising new concerns about how cases were closed.
revealnews.org/article/census…

2/ Nearly 150 people have responded to our survey seeking census workers’ experiences on the ground: screendoor.dobt.co/reveal/work-fo… .

One concern voiced by supervisors: The bureau gave up too early on getting the best data by door-knocking and instead relied on administrative records.

3/ According to the Bureau's own research, quality and completeness of administrative records is not expansive enough to replace a traditional census. [link or screengrab]

census.gov/content/dam/Ce…

4/ Yet this year, the bureau unveiled a plan to rely more heavily on administrative records, anticipating it would make workers’ jobs easier – and save money.

On the ground, though, workers saw 100s of cases closed prematurely before their eyes.

5/ In a whistleblower complaint, 1 MD field supervisor alleged that thousands of cases in her area were “miscategorized as ‘completed’ … when in reality only 1 attempt had been made to visit those addresses and no information was garnered,” according to a synopsis from the OIG.

6/ The supervisor claimed households were attempted once by a worker; she could even see the worker’s notes.

But then, at 11 p.m., the system would end nightly processing and she would see the case suddenly resolved.

7/ Meanwhile, in CA, a census supervisor checked the status of a house a worker wasn’t able to count in mid-September. It was marked as completed — by that worker.

The reason? It reached the max number of attempts. It was one attempt.

8/ We asked the Census Bureau if it relaxed its own standards, as described in this internal slide deck, to increase enumerator productivity during the count.

The bureau declined to comment.

9/ Jeff and Lynne B., two enumerators in Carmichael, California, described the end of field operations in their community as “a mad scramble to count heads.” They said they endured pressure from managers to close cases with incomplete information.

10/ They also said they were instructed to state only 1 person lived at the address if that's what showed up on leases.
“I said, ‘I ain't doing it. I’ll quit,’” Lynne B. said. “When I go do an interview, I do an interview. If that's not what you want, you hired the wrong person.”

11/ A manager in the LA office said they were closing cases w/o visiting.

“I hate to say that it's as simple as that. But in conversations that I was involved in (with local managers), it was, ‘You have to finish, you have to reach 100% and that's a directive from our office.’”

12/ After months of insisting its revised schedule wouldn’t cause data processing problems, the bureau has admitted that a series of “anomalies,” if left unresolved, could warp the count by millions. @npr’s @hansilowang: npr.org/2020/12/05/943…

13/ It’s unclear what options President-elect Joe Biden will have to patch up potentially massive errors from the 2020 census.

14/ Even though 2020 ended, the census hasn’t. And we’re staying on this story. Did you work for the U.S. Census Bureau? Please share your experiences with us here:

reveal.forms.fm/work-for-the-c…