Connecticut's Self-Response Rate Ranks 19th Among the 50 States

Every day, the US Census Bureau updates its Census 2020 self-responses dataset, where it reports figures by state and town. CTData Collaborative will be looking at those numbers to make sure Connecticut is on the right track to have each person counted!

What is the self-response rate? This is the percentages of households in each census tract that have completed their questionnaires online, by paper, and by phone. The Census Bureau has a master list of addresses for each census tract, and it calculates the percent of completed questionnaires from that master address list. (See more here.)

As of Tuesday, March 31, 2020, 37.6% of Connecticut residents had responded to 2020 Census. That puts us 19th among the 50 states.

Connecticut ranks 19th among the 50 states, up from 23rd on March 23. Wisconsin leads the way with a rate of 44.3%, and Alaska is last with a rate of 22%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2020). Response rates | 2020 Census. Retrieved on March 31, 2020 from https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

Connecticut performs better than two of its neighbors, Rhode Island (35.1%) and New York (31.1%), but lags behind Massachusetts (38.3%).

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2020). Response rates | 2020 Census. Retrieved on March 31, 2020 from https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

In Connecticut, there are 6 towns with self-response rates of 25% and under. Those are Sharon (25.9%), Bridgeport (25.4%), Kent (25.4%), Hartford (23.0%), Cornwall (21.9%), and Salisbury (19.9%).

On the other hand, 35 towns have self-response rates above 40%, with Tolland leading at (48.6%). Other towns with a high self-response rate include: Waterford (47.3%), Ridgefield (46.9%), Woodbridge (46.9%) and Cheshire (46.7%).

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2020). Response rates | 2020 Census. Retrieved on March 31, 2020 from https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

Connecticut’s largest cities have lower response rates than Connecticut’s average. Stamford has the highest (34.8%) followed by Waterbury (28.9%), New Haven (28.3%), Bridgeport (25.4%), and Hartford (23.0%). However, there are also many small towns that lag behind the state average as well.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2020). Response rates | 2020 Census. Retrieved on March 31, 2020 from https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html

Connecticut’s cities, as in all states, are at risk of being undercounted, and in turn, risk losing funding that residents need. Each city is made of of smaller areas called census tracts, and response rates vary among these smaller areas. While as a whole Bridgeport’s self response rate is 25.4%, the tract response rates range from a high of 36.1% (tract 727), which is just under the Connecticut average, to a low rate of 11% (tract 705). You can eplore tracts in your own community using the Census 2020 Hard to Count Map.

Lighter colors represent higher response rates. The darkest orange is the lowest response rate.

Source: Census 2020 Hard to Count Map. Retrieved on April 1, 2020 from https://www.censushardtocountmaps2020.us/

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