Children & the Census
Preparing for the next census
OUTREACH &
Advocacy
An accurate Decennial Census is not only mandated by our U.S. Constitution – it is critical to the health and future of our nation. Trillions of dollars are at stake – dollars that fund essential services. Young children are not included in the census for different reasons than adults. We need different messages to encourage people to include all the children in their household in their census form.
We need advocates to ensure that the count of young children is accurate by educating and encouraging communities to self-respond to the census form and to include everyone in the household.
The Count All Kids campaign publishes research, shares outreach strategies, and educates advocates so that every child will be counted in every census.
RESEARCH
& Data Analysis
The Count All Kids Committee engages in several efforts to improve the count of children in the Decennial Census and improve accuracy of data on children.
These efforts include:
- Reviewing and advocating for research on why children are missed, including evaluations of what happened in 2020;
- Proposing strategies to improve outreach barriers such as address files, multi-unit housing, and low literacy rates;
Supporting the use of administrative data to supplement, not replace, self-response data; - Proposing strategies to improve and support the accurate representation of children in surveys, such as the American Community Survey and the NEWS survey;
- Proposing strategies to improve the accuracy of the Blended Base for Population Estimates, which is used to allocate funding for many programs;
- Monitoring the implementation of the Office of Management and Budget’s race and ethnicity reporting standards;
- Strategizing effective ways to oppose false information about the census, especially pertaining to citizenship;
- Supporting the use of administrative data to supplement, not replace, self-response data;
- Submitting comments to support the improvement of the census and data;
- Educating funders about the need to support advocacy to improve the count of young children in the census.
Join An
Upcoming Event,
or view previous webinars
We regularly highlight both our own as well as events and webinars hosted by our partners. These events make great opportunities to learn more about census data directly from expert analysts and advocates, and also provide excellent spaces for questions to be answered and networks to be strengthened.
View the links below for access to upcoming events and recordings of previous webinars.
