Key data in North Carolina's response to the 2020 census

   58.1% of households in NC have self-responded to the 2020 Census between March 12 and July 5, 2020. The top performing state is Minnesota (71.4%). North Carolina is currently ranked 34 out of 50 states and D.C. for self-response rate. Nationally, 61.9% of households have self-responded to the census.

How are people responding to the 2020 Census in North Carolina?

45.4% of NC households responded to the census online versus 49.4% of households nationwide.

12.7 % of NC households responded to the census by phone or mail versus 12.5% of households nationwide.

Other key findings:

1. The growth in self-response rate now very small. As of July 5th, 58.1% of households in NC have responded to the Census, up less than half a percentage point over the past two weeks. The nation had similar growth of 0.3 percentage points, from 61.6% to 61.9%.
   North Carolina now ranks 34 out of 50 states and DC. It maintains its ranking from the previous two-week period. Its highest ranking to-date was 33rd.
2. Over half of households have responded in 68 NC counties. This leaves 32 remaining counties that have yet to meet the 50% self-response benchmark. The majority of these are located in rural western and northeastern North Carolina.
3. Census tracts with the most and fewest young children continue to lag the state. An average of 56% of households responded in tracts with the fewest young children – 2.1 percentage points below the state. Similarly, an average of 56.5% of households responded in tracts with the highest amount of young children – 1.6 percentage points below the state. Tracts between these two categories, on the other hand, had average response rates above the NC average.
4. Tracts with fewest foreign-born residents continue to lag behind the state.  As of July 5th, households in tracts with the fewest foreign-born residents had an average response rate of 54.3% – 3.8 percentage points below the state.
   Tracts with >50% minority residents lag behind NC. An average of 51.4% of households responded in tracts where the majority of residents are American Indian, Asian, Black or Hispanic/Latinx – 6.7 percentage points below the state.
5. Over two-thirds of households have responded in high internet access areas compared to half in low internet access areas. An average of 50.1% of households have responded in low internet access areas – 16.4 percentage points below the average for high-access areas (66.5%).
6. Five primarily urban counties outrank the state. These are Craven (61%), Forsyth (61%), Guilford (64%), Mecklenburg (61%), and Wake (67%). Each county’s response rate grew less than one percentage point from the last report.