Lack of Census Reporting to Shape County’s Future?

COURT HOUSE – Cape May County has a historic problem with the census count. Self-response rates in the county have never been high. 
In 2010, after the self-response period, the county’s response rate was 32.6%. This year, as of May 6, the county’s self-response rate is even lower, at 27%, barely over one-fourth of the estimated households.
The ongoing public health crisis is likely a reason for faint responses.
The next lowest county response rate in New Jersey is Hudson County, at 48.2%. Hudson is in the heart of the battle with COVID-19. Hudson, as of May 8, suffered 940 deaths associated with the pandemic, along with 16,520 total cases.
The census problem in Cape May County has more aspects to it than the pandemic.
The census’s commencement in the county is slow because even much of the shrinking permanent population of the county is not around when the first mailers are distributed. With a sizable number of residents in warmer climates in March, when the mailers are sent, the first and second waves of notices often find empty nests.
Yet, even that does not fully explain the state’s lowest county-level return rate.
Cape May County’s current return rate is just edging out Lane, Kansas and Carbon, Wyoming, both at 26%. Cape May County is ranked 2,864th of 3,203 county census locations nationally. Some of Cape May County’s municipalities do worse than the county as a whole.
In New Jersey comparisons, only two municipalities in the county rise out of the bottom 63 in the state, Middle Township 455th out of 563 municipal return rates, and Upper Township 456th.
Recognizing that a complete count is important to the state, New Jersey officials amped up their efforts to get a complete accounting of the state’s residents. Counties were encouraged to form “complete count committees.” Four counties elected not to form such committees, and Cape May County was one. The lack of a committee meant that the county did not share in the $3.2 million in state grant dollars to help census efforts.
The City University of New York Graduate Center’s national Hard to Count Map shows populations at risk in the county for an undercount. One problem is the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that almost 15% of the 39,904 households in the county lack in-home access to the internet in a year when the census offers more opportunities to participate online.
At stake in all this is everything from the size of the state’s congressional delegation to funds available for school lunches. With the distribution and allocation, almost $700 billion in federal funds dependent on census counts – the price to pay for ignoring the census could be impactful.
Funding for highway planning and construction, grants for public transportation, school funding, Pell grant allocations, wildlife conservation funds, and housing assistance are just highlights of what is involved. A booklet entitled “Uses of Census Bureau Data in Federal Funds Distribution,” lists many federal programs that make allocation decisions using census data.
New Jersey has a long shoreline, but it is in this county that the ocean-fronting communities do the worst in terms of self-reporting.
Of the 563 municipalities in the state listed on the Census Bureau’s response rankings, Wildwood is 551, West Cape May 539, Sea Isle City 558, Stone Harbor 559, Cape May, the county’s namesake resort town, 539.
Reports on county population show the numbers shrinking with each census. Part of that is undoubtedly real.
The other question is what part of that decreasing population count is just a poor count?
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.