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    DEMOGRAPHICS

    2020 Census: Big Population Increases Here

    Wellfleet grew 30%, Provincetown 25%, in 10 years

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The first tranche of data from the 2020 U.S. census was released last week, and it shows something new for the Outer Cape: substantial population growth.

    The 2010 census showed the resident population here falling relative to the 2000 count. Provincetown had lost 14 percent of its population in 10 years, as of 2010, and Eastham had lost 9 percent.

    Now, the 2020 count shows all four Outer Cape towns rebounding well beyond their 2000 numbers. In fact, the growth rate in Wellfleet was the highest in mainland Massachusetts, with the exception of tiny Tyringham in the Berkshires, which went from 327 people to 427.   Wellfleet grew by 29.7 percent — from 2,750 people to 3,566.

    Provincetown grew from 2,942 people to 3,664 — a growth rate of 24.5 percent. Truro’s population grew from 2,003 to 2,454, an increase of 22.5 percent. And Eastham grew from 4,756 people to 5,752 — a jump of 16.1 percent.

    No other town on Cape Cod came close to these numbers in percentage terms. Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, however, both outstripped even the Outer Cape. Nantucket’s population grew an astonishing 40 percent in 10 years, from 10,172 people to 14,255. Dukes County, which contains all six towns on Martha’s Vineyard, grew 24.6 percent, from 16,535 people to 20,600.

    The scale of these numbers raises many questions. Was the 2010 census an undercount? Was the 2020 census an overcount because there were so many people taking refuge here from Covid?

    Officials on Nantucket have argued the 2010 census undercounted their island’s population. People on the Outer Cape have tended to accept that the year-round population here is shrinking. And, indeed, it could have continued to shrink all the way through 2019, before rebounding during the pandemic.

    But it’s hard to pin the entire increase on Covid. The census specifically asks where you were living on April 1, 2020. “You should respond for the address of your usual residence (which is the place where you live and sleep most of the time) as of April 1, 2020, even if you were temporarily staying elsewhere on April 1, 2020,” said the instructions. People who relocated to their second homes early in the Covid pandemic would theoretically still have filled out census forms for their primary address — even if they were completing those forms in July or August of 2020.

    These instructions notwithstanding, by July or August some people may have decided their move here was permanent. Given the sheer scale of the increase, though, it seems unlikely to be the only cause.

    Race and Age

    Last week’s release included data on race, but not much data on age. In Provincetown, the Black, Asian, and Hispanic-origin populations all climbed even faster than the overall rate of growth.   Provincetown is still overwhelmingly white — but it went from 92 percent white to 86 percent.

    The same patterns are seen in Wellfleet, Truro, and Eastham, which all now have white populations around 90 percent. In Eastham, the 2010 census counted only 34 Black residents, while the 2020 census found 190.

    The only age data available comes indirectly, by comparing total-population numbers to 18-and-over population numbers. Here, the news is less good. Provincetown’s under-18 population actually fell, from 167 people in 2010 to 153 in 2020. The same thing happened in Truro: 263 minors in 2010, and only 248 in 2020.

    In Wellfleet, though, the under-18 population went up, from 369 to 394, a 7-percent increase. And in Eastham, the under-18 population went from 627 to 652, a 4-percent increase.

    Even in those two towns, though, the percentage increase in the under-18 population was much smaller than the percentage increase in the overall population. The Outer Cape has definitely gained people, but the numbers suggest it is still disproportionately not gaining families with children.

    Housing

    Provincetown also gained 489 units of housing overall — something the other towns definitely cannot say. Provincetown’s total housing units (a number that includes both year-round-occupied and seasonally vacant residential units) went up almost 11 percent in 10 years.

    Eastham gained 145 residential units, good for a 2.5-percent increase over 10 years.

    Wellfleet and Truro, however, actually lost residential housing units.

    The 2020 census counted 76 fewer places to live in Truro than there had been in 2010 — a 2.5-percent decrease. Wellfleet, meanwhile, lost 42 residential units over ten years, a decrease of 1 percent.

    A 29.7-percent increase in population and a 1-percent decrease in housing units is a stunning combination for Wellfleet. The Outer Cape has always been a literal, as well as a metaphorical, outlier; this decade’s census data simply drive home the point.

    DEMOGRAPHICS

    Wealth of Census Numbers Excludes LGBTQ Data

    Legislators and advocates for gay rights don’t have facts they need

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — With the counting stage of the 2020 census having drawn to its abrupt close, the Census Bureau’s next step is to release its final report, which will contain a wealth of demographic data about the U.S. population. There is one set of data, however, that the report will not contain: detailed information on America’s LGBTQ population.

    The census has been asking questions about respondents’ age, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and marital status for decades. The census does collect some information on same-sex couples — but it records only the numbers on people who report being in a same-sex marriage. There is no question on the form about sexual orientation or gender identity.

    As data analysis becomes an increasingly important element of the legislative process, advocates for LGBTQ rights say the lack of good data is an issue. As it stands, said Sasha Goodfriend, chair of the Mass. Commission on LGBTQ Youth, “we definitely don’t have enough data sources to be able to do our work as comprehensively as we wish we could.”

    State Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro agreed. When it comes to legislation affecting LGBTQ people, he said, better data would “allow us to make a whole host of better-informed policymaking decisions, particularly as it relates to a vulnerable population.”

    In the most recent 2019-2020 legislative session, 18 bills relevant to LGBTQ issues were filed in the state senate. Cyr introduced two of them, with data as a primary motivator. He proposed the first (S. 1237, “An act relative to HIV prevention access for young adults”) because he had data — surveys showed exceptionally high danger of HIV transmission in LGBTQ youth. The second Cyr bill (S. 905, “An act to collect data on LGBTQI prisoners held in restrictive housing”) calls for gathering information needed to address issues faced by LGBTQ people who are incarcerated.

    One notable source of data advocates in the state currently rely on is the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national survey administered to high school students in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and the Mass. Dept. of Public Health. But this information says nothing about the adult population.

    Researchers at the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law, have been conducting detailed analyses of census data on same-sex households since 1990. They release their findings in the form of “snapshots” that visualize the relative population of same-sex couples at the national, state, and local level.

    After the 2010 census, the Institute reported that Provincetown had the nation’s highest occurrence of same-sex cohabitating couples, with 163 same-sex couples per 1,000 households. The statistic led the LGBTQ news magazine, the Advocate, to proclaim Provincetown the “gayest city in America.”

    Lost in translation was the fact that the statisticians arrive at their findings by using census data to count similar-age people of the same sex living in the same household as same-sex couples. Then, they adjust the number downward in hopes of making up for the fact that not all those who live together are in fact couples.

    In the end, the data the Williams Institute releases appear to account for only about one-fifth of America’s total LGBTQ population. Their 2010 Census Snapshot found that there were 646,464 same-sex couples in the country, which is only about 0.42 percent of the American populace. That total falls well below virtually all research-based estimates for the national LGBTQ population.

    Kerith J. Conron, research director at the Williams Institute, said, “We spend a lot of time at the Williams Institute trying to provide basic demographic information about LGBTQ people that we should be able to find from the Census Bureau.”

    DEMOGRAPHICS

    Census Bureau Claims 100% Response Rate

    But experts have questions about data quality

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — After a slow start that saw all four Outer Cape towns lagging behind in 2020 census self-response rates, the U.S. Census Bureau now claims that every single household in Barnstable County has been accounted for. But independent observers have raised questions about the bureau’s methods and are concerned that results will be less than accurate.

    Until Aug. 1, the Census Bureau relied on self-responses by mail, by phone, or online to record data for the Outer Cape and across the nation. Starting on Aug. 1, the Bureau began to send census takers, or enumerators, door to door to record information manually for households that had not yet responded on their own. At this point, although the average self-response rate for the four Outer Cape towns is still only 33.5 percent, enumerators have recorded information about all the remaining households. That’s how they arrived at a 100 percent response rate.

    That 100-percent figure, however, can be misleading.

    “Overall enumeration rates tell only part of the story,” wrote D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer and editor at the Pew Research Institute specializing in demographics, in an email to the Independent. “The overall rate is based on enumerating households using a variety of techniques, some more accurate than others. Some census-watchers are concerned that the Census Bureau will rely too much on the less accurate methods.”

    Census employees on the Outer Cape faced a number of challenges specific to the area.

    “Our seasonal areas typically take the longest amount of time to complete, because it’s hard to find someone who can verify information,” New York Regional Census Bureau Director Jeff Behler told the Independent. To shorten the timeframe here, he said, “we brought in extra people so we could blitz areas all at once.”

    An anonymous enumerator, one of several hundred hired in August to go door to door, told the Independent that getting data in Wellfleet was challenging, both because there are so many seasonal residences and because internet connections were spotty, which prevented enumerators from recording data via their census devices onsite at many homes.

    “It often took multiple attempts to obtain a proxy,” said this enumerator. “You would go and there wouldn’t be anybody there, or the people that were there wouldn’t have any information [about the owners] because they were renters.”

    According to Cohn, beyond self-responses, other means of recording data “include census-worker interviews with proxies; using ‘high-quality’ government records from agencies such as the IRS or Social Security Administration; or classifying a housing unit as vacant based on census-taker observation. If the bureau cannot enumerate a household, it will use a statistical technique called imputation to count it.

    “The Census Bureau’s own research shows that the most accurate responses are self-responses — what people tell the bureau about themselves on their own,” continued Cohn.

    In both Barnstable County and Massachusetts as a whole, self-response rates are slightly higher than they were for the 2010 Census. Behler said that, at the state level, self-response rates have risen by just 0.3 percent since the last census, but in Barnstable County, they rose by 5.2 percent. The number of households whose data was collected by imputation “is not something that’s tracked,” he added.

    In response to pressure from the White House, the Census Bureau announced on Aug. 3 that it would cease counting operations on Sept. 30, a month earlier than planned. Although many feared this would result in an inaccurate count, Behler said that the Census Bureau was able to reach a complete count by that point.

    A Sept. 24 district court ruling allowed the Census Bureau to continue counting. But on Tuesday the Supreme Court overturned the district court and permitted the Trump administration to end the count early after all.

    Behler said that did not make a difference in our region’s count. On the Outer Cape, he said, there are zero cases left. “Certainly, in those four towns, we couldn’t do any better,” he said.

    That might very well be true: Cohn pointed out that a Census Bureau official testified in court recently that the national rate of proxy interviews in 2020 so far is about what it was in 2010. But it will take a careful analysis of the Census Bureau’s final report when it is released in a few months to determine whether we could, in fact, have done any better.

    Residents who think they may not have been counted should check their status at 2020census.gov.

    THE 2020 CENSUS

    Looming Deadlines and Low Response Rates Raise Concerns

    Council on Aging warns of losing ‘millions in federal funding’

    By

    As the current deadline of Sept. 30 for completing the 2020 census draws near, low self-response rates and misconceptions about filling out the census questionnaire are lowering hopes for a reliable and accurate count. Self-response rates for Barnstable County stood at 49.2 percent this week, well below the state average of 67.7 percent. A possible reason for this dismal result is the low rate of reporting by second-home owners.

    While new ways to fill out the census by phone and online have made it more accessible, delays in door-to-door operations due to the Covid-19 pandemic raise questions about how accurate this year’s data collection will be. And there have been accusations that the early deadlines are politically motivated, as census data is used for Congressional apportionment.

    Besides the fear that millions of residents will not be counted by Sept. 30, a further concern is that the processing of data will be rushed and inaccurate because of a Dec. 31 deadline for that work.

    Ptown COA logoThe Provincetown Council on Aging issued a press release last week warning that the town “could lose millions in federal funding if 2020 census numbers don’t improve.” The statement cited a response rate of only 29 percent in Provincetown.

    “It’s critically important that all residents fill out the 2020 census questionnaire as soon as possible,” said Senior Center Director Chris Hottle. “This low response rate could have a tremendous negative impact on grants received by the council on aging as well as for other human services providers and programs over the next 10 years, especially on top of anticipated grant funding cuts due to Covid.”

    Some Cape Cod residents have reported filling out their census forms online multiple times, raising concerns that their original forms were never actually recorded. But this is how the census form works now on multiple platforms; residents can fill out the form more than once. Duplicate responses will be eliminated in the post-processing phase.

    The September and December deadlines pose threats to the accuracy of the census, especially in harder-to-reach areas such as Outer Cape Cod. There is more reliance here on door-to-door canvasing, which has been delayed because of the pandemic. According to Jeff Behler, New York regional director of the Census Bureau, the Outer Cape is among roughly 5 percent of the nation’s households that rely on census invitation packages being distributed to homes directly, since they cannot be delivered to post office boxes.

    Since Aug. 9, census takers have been approaching homes for which responses have not been recorded. As of Sept. 5, these nonresponse follow-up operations were 60.1 percent complete for the East Bridgewater Area Census Office, which encompasses Barnstable County.

    While self-response rates remain low for a large part of the country, the data may be exaggerated for Barnstable County, as second-home owners may not be filling out the census correctly or at all. Jennifer Clinton, a community development planner at the Cape Cod Commission, said, “There was definitely some confusion locally for part of the summer about the role of second- home owners, especially because of the pandemic. A lot of them received the information here and then thought, ‘I already responded where I primarily live so I don’t need to respond,’ and that’s kind of true.”

    Behler said, “Ideally, someone who owns a second home would fill out a form first at their primary residence, where they usually live or stay as of April 1, and then for the second home, we want them to fill it out, but we want them to put ‘zero people usually live or stay here.’ And then that would increase the self-response rate.”

    “It decreases our margin of error and improves our data accuracy,” said Clinton, “if we can confirm there are zero people living here year-round.”

    The census can be completed online at 2020census.gov. In spite of controversy over the issue this year, there is no question about U.S. citizenship on the census survey.

    CURRENTS

    This Week in Provincetown

    By

    Meetings Ahead

    Meetings are held remotely. Go to provincetown-ma.gov and click on the meeting you want to watch.

    Thursday, Sept. 3

    • Personnel Board, 4:30 p.m.
    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 6 p.m.

    Tuesday, Sept. 8

    • Visitor Services Board, 1 p.m.
    • Open Space Committee, 2 p.m.
    • Licensing Board, 5:15 p.m.

    Thursday, Sept. 10

    • Animal Welfare Committee, 12 noon
    • Finance Committee, 4 p.m.

    Conversation Starters

    Covid-19 Update

    As of Sept. 1, Provincetown had one active case of Covid-19, 31 cases considered recovered, and one death.

    Census Deadline Is Sept. 30

    If you have not done so already, the deadline to complete the U.S. Census is Sept. 30.

    A group of participants in Tarmac Tuesday, a beach cleanup organized on Sept. 1 by Jay Critchley, shows off their collection at Provincetown’s Herring Cove Beach. (Photo Nancy Bloom)

    A complete and accurate count is critical for the region. The results affect community funding and Congressional representation, according to the Provincetown town web page. Funding based on census data goes to the schools, the library, the senior center, health care, roads, housing, child-care services, and transportation. The census count also determines the number of seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives, and it’s used to draw Congressional and state legislative districts. For more information and to fill out the census: https://2020census.gov/en.html —K.C. Myers

    THE UNCOUNTED

    Outer Cape Census Response Is Among Lowest in State

    Those with P.O. boxes haven’t received forms or instructions

    By

    The self-reported response to the U.S. Census from the Outer Cape has been extremely low so far — under 25 percent for all four towns. Truro’s rate is the second lowest in the state, with only 5.2 percent of households self-reporting.

    Statewide and national response rates are both around 60 percent.

    These low response rates likely result from two factors. First, many houses are second homes, whose owners may not realize they must fill out a census form for each of their residences. For their second homes, they should indicate that zero people live there, to save census workers time trying to figure out whether anyone is home.

    The second reason is that the federal government does not send census forms to post office boxes. That means in Truro, where there is no street delivery, nobody has received census identification numbers or instructions about how to complete the census.

    New York Regional Census Bureau director Jeff Behler told the Independent that P.O. boxes are not tied to street addresses, which means they can’t be used to collect data. Therefore, for places like Truro, “They never got anything from the census asking them to respond,” he said.

    If you have a mailbox, you’ll hear from the Census. (Photo Nancy Bloom)

    Forms for completing the federal census, a count of every U.S. resident as of April 1, 2020, will eventually be hand-delivered to houses that do not receive mail delivery. Census workers started delivering those packages on March 15 but had to stop two days later due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In normal times, it would take only about two weeks to complete package delivery across the Northeast.

    As states begin to reopen, census workers are starting to deliver packages again. Deliveries began in Maine and Vermont last week, but Behler is not sure when they will be able to get going in Massachusetts.

    Behler said his office is following state and local guidelines to protect census workers. This year, census workers will not knock on doors. Rather, they’ll leave packages on doorsteps. “There’s no need to interact with the public for this operation, so we’re thinking we’ll start sooner rather than later,” Behler said.

    Although it’s possible to fill out the census without an identification number by entering your street address online or over the phone, Behler encouraged residents to wait for the package to be delivered. “We’re asking residents to be patient,” he said. “If they complete it online without their I.D., and what they write doesn’t exactly match our street address, we will have to send someone out there to knock on their door.”

    As the Independent reported on Dec. 6, the census bureau was having some difficulty recruiting workers. At that time, they had received only about 700 applications, a quarter of their goal. Now, however, Behler said that the bureau has met its goal for recruiting workers.

    “There’s been no issue,” he said. “We’ve fully staffed all of our operations to date. But we’re still allowing people to apply. Some people who applied six months ago may no longer be interested in a position that goes door to door.”

    Cape Cod Commission Executive Director Kristy Senatori said that the commission’s Complete Count Committee is trying to ensure that hard to count populations, like seniors, respond to the census. But with on the ground operations stalled, they’ve switched to using social media for outreach.

    “Because we have an older demographic who are taking social distancing seriously, we have a lower response rate,” Senatori said. “Some people are having difficulty responding to the census.”

    Each council on aging in Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham is offering to help seniors complete the census. Those having difficulties with technology or other questions can call their local council to ask for assistance.

    The census bureau has asked Congress for an extension until April 30, 2021, to complete the 2020 census, which determines federal and state funding, along with legislative representation, for the next decade.

    The original deadline for responding to the census was July 31. That has now been extended until Oct. 31, 2020.

    COUNTING

    2020 Census Count Will Affect Cape Infrastructure

    Challenges include counting immigrants and seniors who leave for the winter

    By

    Census packages won’t arrive in mailboxes across the country until mid-March, but officials and community groups on Cape Cod are strategizing now about how to make sure everyone here is counted.

    crowd graphicData gathered in next year’s U.S. census will be used to determine the distribution of federal funds and legislative representatives for the next 10 years. That’s why counting everyone is so important, according to Kristy Senatori, the executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, which is part of a so-called complete count committee, tasked with improving participation of hard to count populations.

    Senatori’s concern is that with populations on Cape Cod falling in recent years, our region stands to lose federal funding on many fronts.

    The Outer Cape’s population decline appears to track Barnstable County’s fairly closely, with Provincetown being an exception. Countywide, according to the American Community Survey, the population has decreased 1.62 percent since 2010. Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham’s numbers have decreased by 0.2 percent, 0.76 percent, and 1.72 percent, respectively. Provincetown has grown by 0.61 percent.

    These percentages may seem small, but Senatori says they could translate into real losses in federal dollars that go towards infrastructure like roads, wastewater systems, and transportation, as well as services like health care, education, and emergency preparedness programs.

    With its broad consequences, “The necessity of a complete and accurate count can’t be overstated,” Senatori told the Independent.

    Counting everyone is not simple in any community. But the extreme seasonal variation in the population of the Outer Cape presents special challenges. One concern is that immigrants and undocumented people may be especially afraid to interact with census workers or divulge information. Seasonal residents who spend most of the winter elsewhere also appear to be prone to being miscounted.

    Although a federal judge permanently struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to include a citizenship question on the census (which advocates argued would intimidate undocumented people and prevent them from filling out census forms), immigrants may still be wary of completing the census.

    Andrea Aldana, director of housing advocacy at the Community Development Partnership, is one local advocate of the importance of census participation. CDP programming is not directly affected by census counts, Aldana said. Still, the impact comes indirectly because the numbers affect allocations for housing and a range of services that help people here.

    Aldana worries about the count on the Outer Cape. In the case of immigrants, she said, some may fear opening the door to a census worker.

    “The census is the most official interaction you’d have with someone that you didn’t solicit,” Aldana said. “Someone in uniform knocking on your door — that’s terrifying.”

    Jack Yuntis, the Barnstable county administrator who serves on the local complete count committee, emphasized in an interview with the Independent that census data is strictly confidential and will not be shared with any enforcement agency, including ICE. Instead, he explained, data are aggregated at town and county levels so that individuals and households cannot be identified.

    As for seasonal residents, they should expect to receive census packets at each of their addresses, New York Regional Census Bureau director Jeff Behler said.

    The concern locally is that some people who spend a few months away each year may respond incorrectly, thus diminishing the count of older people here.

    A packet should be completed for each address, with careful attention to properly identifying which address is the primary one. A seasonal resident should report herself and anyone else who lives at the residence where she spends the majority of her time. If her winter address is not where she spends the majority of her time, she should report zero people there.

    Recruiting census workers is another challenge. The New York Regional Census Bureau, which hires workers for the northeast, has reached only 27 percent of its goal for applications received in Barnstable County.

    Behler said that the bureau’s target was 2,600 applications, expecting that a third of those would lead to census-taking jobs. So far, they have received only about 700 applications.

    Behler added that the regional bureau is hoping to improve response rates by encouraging mail-in and online participation. (This year will be the first that responding online is possible.) “We’re investing in trying to get people to self-respond,” he said — meaning to respond without having someone come knock at the door for an interview.

    Aside from her hopes for a count that will maximize federal support for infrastructure, the CDP’s Aldana is hopeful the census might shed light on some positive demographic trends on the Outer Cape.

    “The lack of racial diversity has been the hardest thing about living here for me,” Aldana said. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia. While current data put the Lower Cape’s towns at 94 to 98 percent white, she said, “I have this sense that our communities are becoming more racially diverse.”

    Aldana thinks that the numbers on outmigration of young people may also be changing, with more beginning to stay or return. She is interested in seeing what the count reveals on that front.

    Good demographics will help ensure resources, Aldana says, but a hidden upside could also be that the census data might help transform our understanding of who this community includes.

    © 2023 The Provincetown Independent, all rights reserved.

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