Diana Elliott, Population Reference Bureau, July 28, 2026
"With each decade, conducting the U.S. census becomes a more onerous task. One particularly enduring—and costly—challenge is accurately counting people who are very hard to count, including those who are transient, have complex living arrangements, and distrust the government.
"The U.S. Census Bureau routinely introduces innovations meant to address this challenge. For the first time ever, the 2020 Census allowed households to respond online. While this option helped with data collection and processing, it did little to change the universe of respondents; as it turns out, the people most likely to respond online are also more likely to respond no matter what.
"Administrative records—existing forms like tax records and beneficiary information used to fill in data gaps when households didn’t respond—proved more effective in 2020. While not perfect, this practice has improved the quality of data for the hardest-to-count populations, and it’s expected to see even more widespread use in 2030.
"With Census Day fast approaching, let’s break down what we know about how administrative records were used in 2020, what 2030 could look like, and why transparency around their planned usage is so important."
