Nebraska In Top Ten Of Census Response Rate

NORFOLK - The 2020 U.S. Census is continuing on through the COVID-19 pandemic, and Nebraska recently hit a national milestone with its response rate.

This past weekend, Nebraska crossed the 50% threshold, and currently sits in sixth place in response rate across the country. A handful of counties have also crossed the 50% mark, including Madison and Platte, which UNO Research Coordinator David Drozd says is very encouraging to see.

"With those two in particular, they are among our more diverse locations," Drozd said. "The census gets harder to count the more diverse an area gets, so to be at these levels within a month of when things started is really good."

The 2020 census also marks the first chance that residents have been able to fill out the questionnaire online, which Drozd says is playing a big role in tracking the data in real-time.

"I think it's helping to have that internet option, and it's definitely helping on the data side to see what portion of households are responding real-time," Drozd said. "Figures are released everyday, and they're as-of yesterday, which is about as good as you can get."

The overall numbers first started coming in around March 20th, and Drozd says the total response rate initially grew around 2% per day. That rate has started to slow down since then, which Drozd says is pretty common as a variety of reasons can lead to slower response times.

"The decline is to be expected because those who have no reservations filling the census out are going to do so right away," Drozd said. "There's other folks who are very willing to fill it out but they're just busy, there's a lot of question marks right now that are taking up people's time, but those people will fill it out once they have time."

Drozd says there was initial concern about the more diverse communities not filling the census out at a high rate, but early data suggests the opposite, and that the more rural communities are the ones who need more outreach.

"Madison and Platte are both over 50%, but then areas like Colfax County with Schuyler, Saline County with Crete, and Dakota County with South Sioux City, they're all well over 40% and are holding their own," Drozd said. "There's actually a lot of rural territories that are among the places that need the most outreach for having folks fill it out."

As of Sunday, the top ten response rates among Nebraska counties are as follows:

#1 Howard - 59.7%
#2 Sarpy - 58.9%
#3 Seward - 58.1%
#4 Lancaster - 57.1%
#5 Washington - 55.1%
#6 Platte - 54%
#7 Fillmore - 53.8%
#8 Nuckolls - 53%
#9 Gage - 52.6%
#10 Douglas - 52.2%