Census Bureau Restarts Some Field Operations

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Beginning on Wednesday, The U.S. Census Bureau restarted some of its field operations in Washington that have been on hiatus since March.

Operation “Update Leave,” a plan to deliver census packets directly to rural and remote households that do not regularly receive mail from the U.S. Postal Service, is one of the field operations that is scheduled to resume.

While more than 95 percent of households in Washington have already received invitations to participate in the 2020 Census via the new online questionnaire and toll-free call-in number or the traditional paper questionnaire, there are still 92,000 houses in remote locations of Washington that have not received a census packet, according to Census Bureau spokesperson Toby Nelson.

Per the U.S. Census Bureau respondent privacy protection policy, Nelson could not turn over the number of Update Leave households in Lewis County, but the Olympia Area Census Bureau, which is responsible for Lewis County and all counties south of Pierce County and west of Yakima County, has 20,000 houses in remote locations that Operation Leave will be attending to.

Nelson was able to provide a map that shows the approximate location of areas where Update Leave will be providing its service. The map highlights most of East Lewis County, Pe Ell and its surrounding area.

According to a U.S. Census Bureau press release issued on May 11, field staff have been trained to observe all social distancing protocols and will be wearing official personal protective equipment provided by the government.

At a national level, Update Leave field workers will drop off census invitations and census questionnaires to roughly 5.1 million residences.



“This operation is crucial to ensure a complete and accurate count of all communities, which helps guide hundreds of billions of dollars in private and public sector spending per year,” the release states.

Currently in Lewis County, 53.8 percent of households have responded to the 2020 Census, which ranks 20th out of the 39 Washington counties, according to Nelson.

Lewis County’s response rate is about ten percentage points down from Washington’s average of 63.9 percent, good for sixth out of the 50 states, and about 5 percentage points below the national average of 58.6 percent.

The most responsive county in Washington is Clark County at 68.8 percent and the least responsive county is Okanogan County at 27.5 percent.

The best responding census tract — which is defined by the Census Bureau as a small, relatively permanent subdivision of a county — in Lewis County is tract 9714 at 70.1 percent. Tract 9714 accounts for about 2,600 people in western Lewis County that roughly covers the unincorporated community of Newaukum.

Some of the higher response rates by city in Lewis County include: Centralia at 63.8 percent; Chehalis at 62.4 percent; Winlock at 55.1 percent and Vader at 42.5 percent. Some of the lower response rates by city in Lewis County include: Morton at 6.3 percent; Pe Ell at 10.2 percent; Mossyrock at 15.7 percent and Toledo at 25.7 percent.