Ron Wasserstein, ASA Executive Director
Task Force Members
Nancy A. Potok (co-chair), Chief Statistician of the United States (2017–2020); Former Deputy Director, Census Bureau
Robert Santos (co-chair, resigned in April after being nominated as the next census director), Vice President and Chief Methodologist, Urban Institute; 2021 President, American Statistical Association
Constance F. Citro, Senior Scholar, National Research Council, Committee on National Statistics
Robert E. Fay, Senior Scientist, Westat; Former Senior Mathematical Statistician, Census Bureau
Robert Groves, Provost, Georgetown University; Former Director, Census Bureau
Howard Hogan, Adjunct Statistics Professor, The George Washington University; Former Chief Demographer and Chief of the Decennial Statistical Studies Division, Census Bureau
D. Sunshine Hillygus, Political Science Professor, Duke University; Former member, Census Scientific Advisory Committee
Thomas A. Louis, Biostatistics Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Former Chief Scientist, Census Bureau
Kenneth Prewitt (resigned in April upon becoming senior adviser in the office of the director of the US Census Bureau), Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Columbia University; Former Director, Census Bureau
Denice Ross, Fellow, Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, Georgetown University
Matthew Snipp, Burnett C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences, Department of Sociology, Stanford University; Director, Institute for Research in the Social Sciences
John H. Thompson, Distinguished Institute Fellow, Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative, University of Virginia; Former Director, Census Bureau
Katherine K. Wallman, Chief Statistician of the United States (1992–2017); 1992 President, American Statistical Association
Steve Pierson, ASA Director of Science Policy (ASA liaison)
Researchers Selected by the Task Force to Analyze Internal Census Data
Jonathan Auerbach, Assistant Professor of Statistics, George Mason University; former ASA Science Policy Fellow
Paul Biemer, Distinguished Fellow, Statistics, RTI International
Joseph Salvo, Senior Adviser, National Conference on Citizenship
After an intense year of biweekly meetings, the 2020 Census Quality Indicators Task Force wrapped up its work in mid-September. Its products were two reports: 2020 Census Quality Indicators: A Report from the American Statistical Association, released in October 2020, and Final Report: 2020 Census State Population Totals: A Report from the American Statistical Association Task Force on 2020 Census Quality Indicators, released in September 2021.
The 13-member task force of census experts was formed last fall by ASA member Nancy Potok, former Census Bureau deputy director and former US chief statistician, in response to concerns about the quality of the 2020 Census data, including published opinions by notable ASA members.
For example, four former Census Bureau directors—Vincent Barraba, Robert Groves, Kenneth Prewitt, and John Thompson—made a public statement last August in which they urged Congress to task an apolitical, trusted institution to “produce predetermined quality metrics that can assess if the final 2020 numbers match other historical and reasonable estimates of the population the Census Bureau produces.”
The following month, Potok joined with former US chief statistician and former ASA president Katherine Wallman to write an op-ed for The Washington Post in which they pointed out that outside expertise had been enlisted in assessing census data in the past and that the National Academy of Sciences and ASA both “have deep experience studying the census that would suit them to this task.”
The task force began meeting in September 2020, after the invited members agreed to serve. It was initially co-chaired by Potok and ASA President-elect Robert Santos, working under the aegis of the ASA, with biweekly updates on its work provided to the ASA community and broader public. (In April, after President Joe Biden announced he planned to nominate Santos as Census Bureau director, Santos resigned and the task force continued under Potok’s leadership.).
The recommendations of the task force’s first report, 2020 Census Quality Indicators, were endorsed by the ASA Board of Directors in October; the task force recommended a series of quality indicators be used by both Census Bureau staff and qualified external researchers to assess the quality of the 2020 Census. In response, the Census Bureau agreed to allow a group of ASA researchers with “special sworn status” to access and apply the quality indicators to confidential, internal 2020 Census data.
The group’s final report, 2020 Census State Population Totals, incorporated information from several input reports: an analysis of the quality indicators using internal census data from Paul Biemer, Joseph Salvo, and Jonathan Auerbach; a review of research supporting the use of administrative record enumeration in the 2020 Census by Robert Fay; and a discussion of demographic benchmarks by Howard Hogan.
The task force concluded in this report that, despite concerns about political interference in the 2020 Census, it found “no evidence of anything other than an independent and professional enumeration process” and “no major anomalies that would indicate census numbers are not fit for use for purposes of apportionment.” It also recommended the Census Bureau and National Academy of Sciences Committee on National Statistics examine census data at more detailed levels of geography and planning for the 2030 Census should include explicit attention to evaluating and reporting on data quality in a timely manner.
As the task force wraps up its work, the National Academies Committee on National Statistics’ Panel to Evaluate the Quality of the 2020 Census is already ramping up. Two task force members, Thomas A. Louis and Matthew Snipp, are serving on this panel, which will review and evaluate the quality of the data collected in the 2020 Census. Their first report is expected to be released in March 2022 and their final report in May 2023.
Further Reading
2020 Census Quality Indicators. A Report from the American Statistical Association
ASA Board Releases 2020 Census Quality Indicators
Political Interference Threatens the Census. Here’s How to Protect It.
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