State and County-Level Response Rates – Week ending May 10

  North Carolina: Census 2020 Real-Time Response Rates – Week ending May 10 (.pdf)

  View All County-Level Response Rates – Week ending May 10

Key takeaways for week ending May 10

1. North Carolina rises two rankings to 35 out of 50 states and DC. This is its highest ranking since reporting began two months ago. NC now has a response rate of 54.5%. Minnesota (68.7%) was the top responding state in the nation for the sixth week.
2. The response rate gap between North Carolina and the United States is declining. Two weeks ago, 48.5% of households in North Carolina responded to the Census vs. 53.2% of households in the nation, representing a gap of 4.7 percentage points. As of May 10^th, it had declined to 4 percentage points – 54.5% of households in NC vs. 58.5% of households nationwide.
3. Union County now exceeds 2010 NC state response rate. 66.2% of households have responded to the census in Union County, the state’s top-responding county. This now exceeds North Carolina’s final 2010 response rate by 1.4 percentage points.
4. North Carolina passes Mississippi in self-response rate. North Carolina has now passed two southeastern states with previously higher self-response rates: Arkansas and Mississippi. There are now six southeastern states which exceed North Carolina as of May 10^th: Virginia (63.5%), Kentucky (62.2%), Tennessee (58.3%), Alabama (56.5%), Florida (56.1%), and Georgia (54.6%).
5. The average response rate for tracts with the smallest share of young children now exceeds 50% of households. As of May 10^th, 52.3% of households have responded in tracts where less than 4.1% of the population is ages 0-4. However, this week represents the largest gap between this tract quartile’s response rate and the state overall self-response rate: 2.2 percentage points.
6. Tracts with the smallest share of foreign-born residents now have an average response rate exceeding 50%. In tracts where less than 2.9% of the population was foreign-born, an average of 50.4% of households have responded to the Census. This tract quartile’s response rate is 4.1 percentage points below the state – a minor decline from a gap of 4.2 percentage points last week.
7. Tracts with the largest minority populations have not met 50% benchmark. As of May 10^th, an average of 47.6% of households have responded in tracts where over 50% of the population is non-White. This represents a gap of 6.9 percentage points from the state self-response rate, the highest since reporting began.
8. Tracts with the lowest access to high-speed internet have not met 50% benchmark. An average of 46% of households have responded in tracts where over 31% of households lack access to high-speed internet. This represents a gap of 8.5 percentage points from the state self-response rate — a small decline from its peak of 8.6 percentage points last week.

Last updated: 5.11.20