Prepared Statement of
DR. STEVEN DILLINGHAM
DIRECTOR
U.S. CENSUS BUREAU
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Before the House Oversight and Reform Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
February 12, 2020
Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Jordan, and members of the Committee, thank you for
inviting me to testify today. I appreciate the support of Congress and this Committee’s
commitment to a successful 2020 Census.
The 2020 Census has begun in remote Alaska, and Census Day, April 1, is approaching. Our
mission is to count every person living in the United States once, only once, and in the right
place. We appreciate the support provided by Secretary Ross, the President, this Committee, the
Congress, and our partners across the nation. We are pleased to report that we are on mission, on
target, and on budget for a complete and accurate count. Despite declining trends in survey
participation rates across the globe — we are challenging communities across the country to
work with us to improve self-response rates in 2020 over those in 2010. Our main message to the
nation is a simple one: “Responding to the 2020 Census is easy, safe, and important.”
It is easy because for the first time everyone will be invited to respond on-line, or they can
choose to respond by phone or the traditional response through the mail. The new options create
improved efficiencies, relieve burdens on respondents, and reassure people that assistance is but
a phone call away. Using the new technologies (i.e., internet and phones in addition to paper),
makes it the easiest census to respond to in our nation’s history. People can reply almost
anywhere, at any time.
It is safe because we are using the best technologies and practices to protect data confidentiality
and reduce cybersecurity risks. For the 2020 Census, like all of our statistical programs, we
assiduously follow the strict federal law protecting the confidentiality of census responses from
every person. That is simply how we do business in the Census Bureau—no exceptions.
It is important because the constitutionally mandated count is used to apportion seats in the
House of Representatives; to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds to state and
local governments; and to guide critical decisions by communities, governments at all levels,
businesses, and many others. Since the advent of the information age and the recognition of the
importance of data-driven policies and practices, decennial Census data are becoming more
useful and important by the day.
We are pleased to have this opportunity to highlight the progress we have made in a number of
critical areas since our hearing in July.

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 Recruitment and Hiring
Last October, we began recruiting for peak operations. This spring, we will hire from 300,000 up
to 500,000 temporary census workers to conduct nonresponse follow-up and other field
operations critical to the success of 2020. Depending upon location, hourly pay rates range from
$13.50 to $30 per hour. People can easily apply online at 2020census.gov/jobs. Census takers
generally are hired to work in their own neighborhoods and are trained to be respectful while
conducting interviews. By hiring locally, we are also able to ensure census takers have the right
cultural sensitivity and language skills to get a better count. We take the personal safety of our
employees and the public very seriously and have incorporated these concerns into our training
for all Census Bureau field staff.
We already have more than 2.3 million applicants, and with approximately 25,000 new
applications each day, we are on track toward our very ambitious recruitment goals. These
numbers reflect our goals for recruiting that build in the contingency of approximately five
applicants for each expected hire. The recruiting goal is also based on projected self-response
rates. Overall, we remain confident that we will have the workforce in place to get the job done.
Our recruitment efforts are focused on the areas where we need more applicants. A large pool of
applicants helps us absorb attrition and ensure local hires will support the 2020 census across the
nation.
We are conducting job fairs in areas where recruitment is most critical, including historically
hard-to-count areas. We have mailed millions of post cards to potential applicants. We are
targeting communications and advertising (digital and print) in areas with low application rates.
We are partnering with colleges and universities to find applicants across the country for these
positions. We ask you to help in this effort. Please let your constituents know that we are
recruiting for thousands of temporary and term positions. When we conduct our field operations,
we hire locally. Please direct interested constituents to 2020Census.gov/jobs. If you do not have
this link on your websites, please consider adding it today. If there are colleges and universities –
or other prospective partners – that have yet to respond to our national call to action, we would
appreciate your help in reaching out to them. We are asking you to consider every channel for
communicating with the public, particularly social media platforms, to help us spread the word
about these exciting employment and public service opportunities.
Innovations since 2010
We have made many improvements and innovations over the past decade to prepare for the 2020
Census and ensure a complete and accurate count. These include but are not limited to:
 Better technologies and improved processes for canvassing neighborhoods and
developing complete and updated address listings and maps;
 New options for responding beyond traditional paper forms—by internet or phone;
 More language assistance than ever;
 Expanded and more efficient customer assistance phone centers with instant assistance in
English and 12 non-English languages;
 A language program and multi-lingual resources to reach 99.6 percent of our population;
 Hiring nearly twice as many partnership specialists to recruit and assist more than
300,000 partners to help us reach hard-to-count populations;
 Better technologies and more efficient processes for enumerators;
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A very sophisticated and greatly expanded media campaign with new ways to reach
people and communities, including hard-to-count populations; and
Advanced information technologies, security safeguards and privacy protections to
strengthen confidentiality protections and practices.

These innovations, supported by time-tested operations, have increased our confidence that we
are well-prepared for 2020. These and other innovations are explained further in an interim
report on 2020 Census innovations that will be finished soon and provided to the committee.
This report will explain actions taken to identify where to count, motivate people to respond,
facilitate self-response, streamline nonresponse follow up, tabulate data and results, and ensure
data security. The U.S. Census Bureau is taking greater efforts than ever to ensure we count
every person living in this country once, and only once, and in the right place.
Mobile Questionnaire Assistance Program
One innovation I want to specifically highlight is our mobile questionnaire assistance program.
We thank Congress for working with us on this program and supporting its funding. Our
program is focused on improving self-response in low response areas. Census staff will work
with community organizations, go directly into neighborhoods, visit events, participate in
gatherings, and enter high traffic areas with Census-issued mobile devices. These capabilities
will make responding to the census easier than ever before. During our peak operations, we will
be able to allocate resources to areas of greatest need by tracking self-responses in real time and
identifying wherever self-response rates may be falling below targets.
Below are highlights on other key issues for the 2020 Census.
Protecting Confidentiality
Confidentiality is a core part of the Census Bureau’s culture, and we reinforce privacy
safeguards across all statistical programs and activities. Title 13 of the U.S. Code provides the
strongest protections. The law requires responses to Census Bureau surveys and censuses to be
kept confidential and used only for statistical purposes, and we will be clearly communicating
our commitment to protecting confidentiality as part of our media campaign. The same
protections apply whether the data are sourced directly from surveys or obtained from other
agencies. All staff working at the Census Bureau, whether they regularly work with confidential
information or not, take a lifetime oath to protect the privacy and confidentiality of respondent
information. Unlawful disclosure is a federal crime punishable by a $250,000 fine, five years in
prison, or both. We do NOT share confidential, personally identifiable information with any
other agency, including law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security, or anyone else.
The commitment from the Administration on confidentiality is clear in the President’s executive
order: “Under my Administration, the data confidentiality protections in Title 13 shall be fully
respected.”
The Census Bureau uses all responses to all censuses and surveys and all data sets obtained from
other agencies only to produce anonymous statistics. We take every precaution to keep
individual responses confidential, and we are adopting cutting-edge technologies and
methodologies to protect the 2020 Census data.

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 The Census Bureau is modernizing its disclosure avoidance methods considered by experts to be
the gold standard for modern privacy protection in computer science and cryptography. We are
using the best available technologies and methods to protect the privacy and confidentiality of
every respondent, while still providing accurate data needed to inform vital programs. Data from
the 2020 Census will be protected to prevent disclosure and retain the trust of the American
people.
Reaching the Hard-to-Count
“Hard to count” generally refers to groups that experience lower response rates because they are
hard to locate, contact, persuade, or interview. A complete and accurate count depends on
reaching areas with historically low response rates. Reaching all areas of our nation to achieve
a complete and accurate count is our highest priority for the 2020 Census. Census staff and I
have traveled across the nation to learn first-hand about challenges inherent in enumerating hardto-count populations. Census Bureau employees and partners are employing new technologies
and working smarter and harder than ever to meet needs in hard-to-count areas. Together, we are
identifying and applying best practices to further enhance the effectiveness of Census 2020
operations. We are hearing from partners who are your constituents and incorporating their
feedback into our work. Many of the best ideas come from local communities. For example, we
are working closely with Complete Count Committees across the nation to raise public
awareness, inform communities about the importance of the census, and encourage everyone to
participate. Through these committees, and other partnerships, we are expanding locally based
targeted outreach, with a particular focus on hard-to-count households in urban and rural areas
and young children wherever they may live. The Census Bureau will support and build upon
these productive relationships throughout the 2020 Census.
Our comprehensive communications and partnership efforts focus on educating and motivating
members of communities designated as hard-to-count areas due to low self-response rates in
prior censuses. We have documented these areas and will track them continuously while
executing the 2020 Census through our web-based Response Outreach Area Mapper (ROAM)
tool, which is available to the public. Additionally, the Census Bureau will reach these
communities as part of our Non-Response Follow-Up (NRFU) operation should we not receive
self-response after numerous mailings.
Our advertising teams have developed compelling messaging emphasizing the safety of
answering the 2020 Census and the tangible benefits for local communities. We are highlighting
that census data guides the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for vital
programs and benefits at the federal, state, and local levels. These data shape critical daily
decisions made by the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors.
Children
As noted above, our outreach efforts will emphasize the need for respondents to identify and
include young children. Messaging about the importance of including all children living in a
household has been woven into the communications campaign.
The Census Bureau is partnering with national and local education and childcare-related
organizations to use other avenues to reach families, teachers, and social service providers and
others. Our improved and expanded efforts to reach hard-to-count populations reach far beyond
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 our communications campaign. The efforts are embedded into how we conduct 2020 Census
operations. For example, to ensure we count young children, we are training enumerators to ask
specific questions about the presence of children when conducting interviews. They will ask
households to make sure that all children are included regardless of living arrangements,
including foster children, children living with grandparents, and other living situations.
Persons in Rural Areas
Using data from the American Community Survey and the Federal Communications
Commission, we identified areas with lower Internet access, as well as areas with a large
proportion of households that may not use the Internet (such as the elderly). We will include a
paper questionnaire in our first mailing for these specific areas. Every non-responding household
will receive another paper questionnaire on the fourth mailing. The telephone option is also
available. In areas without well-established mailing addresses linked to locations (P.O. boxes,
rural routes, etc.), we will hand deliver questionnaires and make sure we know where to follow
up if the households do not respond.
American Indian and Alaska Native Populations
The Census Bureau has conducted 17 tribal consultations with federal and state recognized tribal
governments to discuss planning, operations, and communications for American Indian and
Alaska Native communities for the 2020 Census. In addition, we will hire local enumerators who
understand and represent these communities. We hired tribal partnership specialists earlier in the
decade, compared to 2010, to work with tribal nations to appoint tribal liaisons, and to form
tribal complete count committees.
People Experiencing Homelessness
We also have specific operations to count persons experiencing homelessness. We work with
shelters, soup kitchens, and other service organizations to count the people they serve, and we
send enumerators to outdoor areas where people may be staying.
Language Assistance
In 2020, we will have more language assistance than ever before for a census. People can
respond on the internet and over the phone in English and 12 non-English languages, covering
more than 99 percent of all households and 87 percent of limited-English-speaking households.
This is an increase from the five languages offered for self-response in 2010. Language guides
and additional support materials will be provided in a total of 59 languages.
Natural Disasters
The Census Bureau is committed to conducting a complete and accurate enumeration for the
entire country, including areas that experience disasters immediately prior to or during census
operations. Should such a disaster occur, the Census Bureau would form a rapid-response team
that will immediately assess the event and formulate an action plan to address the specific
disaster. The Census Bureau has a contingency plan developed to address the addition of major
disasters to our risk registry.
In forming a response plan, the Census Bureau will consider facts such as the timing of the
event, the severity, the affected geographic area, access to the affected areas, and other
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 environmental concerns. For example, when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017,
we changed our plans in order to conduct Update Leave. The recent earthquakes in Puerto Rico
buttress that decision.
This operation will allow additional recovery time for the impacted area before we update
locations and will result in Census Bureau staff hand-delivering questionnaires to all locations
where people are living in Puerto Rico. We are also conducting Update Leave in areas of the
Florida Panhandle affected by Hurricane Michael and areas of California affected by fires in
2018. The Census Bureau will face the challenges of any unexpected event and will take steps
necessary to enumerate the population affected by any such event.
Cybersecurity
The American public must trust that we will protect the data they provide. We have designed our
cybersecurity program to protect our networks and systems, ensuring they remain resilient in the
face of persistent and evolving cyber threats. A key feature of the security is encryption of data at
every stage—in transit over the internet, at rest within our systems, and on the enumeration
devices. Also, enumeration devices are secured with multiple credentials, and if a device is lost,
it will be remotely disabled and its contents permanently deleted. Our cybersecurity program is
designed to adapt and respond to a changing threat landscape. We incorporate protections in our
technology, have processes to continuously monitor systems, and have a team ready to respond
immediately to any potential threat. The Census Bureau works with the Department of Homeland
Security, the federal intelligence community, and industry experts to share threat intelligence,
giving us the most visibility possible to enable immediate action to protect data.
With this cooperation, we identify threats early so that we may proactively respond and improve
security. Our developers and security engineers work together to integrate security into systems
design and development. Our systems are independently assessed for cybersecurity before
deployment, and ongoing testing of cybersecurity capabilities is conducted throughout the time
systems are operational.
Systems Readiness
On February 7, the Census Bureau finalized its decision regarding our internet response system,
choosing to deploy two applications for this system. Both provide secure and effective internet
response capabilities and exceed the expected internet self-response user load. The one with the
greatest capacity was chosen for the public-facing system, and the other will be used for the
Census Questionnaire Assistance Centers and phone data collection, while also serving as
backup solution in the case of unforeseen events. We tested each solution in order to understand
any performance limitations and minimize risks. Based on these results, we firmly believe the
application selected for Internet Self Response can provide additional capacity and reduced risk.
Importantly, the modular design of the data collection systems enables substitution of either fully
integrated application for the other. The decision is a result of solid data analysis from a highly
effective testing program and deploys the right application to the right place in our operations.
2020 Communications Campaign
Motivating households to respond directly to the census themselves is one of our most important
functions. Self-response saves money and resources and provides better data. The 2020 Census is
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 benefiting from the most robust public communications and partnership campaign in the history
of the decennial census. Our outreach efforts are reaching into every community in the country
through paid advertising, public service announcements, partnership materials, our Statistics in
Schools program, and national and local events. The theme of our campaign, “Shape Your
Future. Start Here” tested very well across all audiences.
By communicating the importance of participating in the 2020 Census to local communities, we
hope to overcome many barriers that may inhibit participation. Informational materials for
partners to use are available online at 2020census.gov/partners and will be added on a flow basis.
Last month, on January 21, we celebrated the official kickoff of our enumeration efforts in
Toksook Bay, Alaska. We also recently launched our nationwide paid media campaign. In
March, we will begin inviting households to respond to the 2020 Census through a national
mailing and hand delivery in parts of the country impacted by natural disasters or other special
circumstances. We will activate our online questionnaire/census form and begin accepting
responses by phone. At that point, our media campaign will be focused on motivating people to
respond to the 2020 Census and informing them how to do it.
Every household will receive a full paper form to respond to the 2020 Census if they have not
already responded. Some will receive it in their first mailing, based on areas with low internet
access or populations such as the elderly who may not be inclined to respond online. Initial
mailings will notify residents in a dozen languages how to obtain further assistance if needed.
In May, we will continue to invite response to the 2020 Census, also reminding Americans that
we will begin our Non-Response Follow-Up operation. Our campaign will make sure the public
knows that enumerators will soon greet them at their doors if they have not responded.
An important effort in our campaign is countering misinformation and disinformation efforts.
Since the 2010 Census, the digital marketing tools available for outreach and targeted
communications make it easier to engage different population segments. However, those same
tools can be used in misinformation and disinformation campaigns to negatively impact response
and participation. Given how quickly information spreads today, the Census Bureau has been
working to keep up to date on these trends through partnerships and ongoing work with tech
companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Google.
National and Local Partnerships
We are aggressively recruiting partners to be trusted voices in local communities and at the
national level to motivate people to respond. We have hired more than 1,500 partnership staff.
They are working to establish more than 300,000 volunteer partnerships at the local and regional
levels, focusing on diverse racial, ethnic, religious, and other communities. We currently have
266,000 community partners, exceeding the number recorded at the end of 2010 Census, and
expect to reach our ambitious goal of 300,000 very soon. Among the states, we have near
complete participation in our program to form state complete count committees, which has been
a major focus for the 2020 Census, building on lessons learned about their effectiveness in 2010.
At the local level we are proud to have over 10,000 complete count committees. We have over
500 national partners and supporters.
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 Key partners include the AARP, the American Library Association, the Boys and Girls Clubs of
America, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Partnership for America’s Children, the National
Association of Latino Elected Officials, the National Urban League, the National Black Chamber
of Commerce, Volunteers of America, and large employers and corporate leaders like Tyson
Foods, Walmart, Comcast and many more.
Cooperation with the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
The Census Bureau has worked closely with GAO throughout the decade, and their contributions
have supported our preparations for the 2020 Census. The Census Bureau has devoted significant
resources to address GAO’s recommendations. GAO has noted improvements we have made in
many areas, including Lifecycle Cost Estimation, Operational Innovation, and Cyber
Security/Systems Readiness. We have officially closed almost 75% GAO’s recommendations,
and we are managing risks effectively, in accordance with its guidance. Our work with GAO and
the Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General (OIG) will help ensure a successful
2020 Census, and we want to continue our strong and constructive relationship.
Closing
We are especially grateful to you, the Congress, for helping us to reach this critical point in our
preparations. We appreciate your funding and support for 2020 Census programs and operations.
Members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, have:
 Become 2020 Census Congressional Partners;
 Convened town hall meetings to keep constituents informed about the 2020 Census;
 Recorded and posted Public Service Announcements to further raise awareness and assist
in recruiting;
 Sponsored job fairs to help us reach recruiting goals; and
 Supported record numbers of Complete Count Committees and partnerships throughout
the nation.
Your outreach to constituents, collaboration with partners, and affirmation of the importance of
2020 Census is having a powerful impact. You are helping us fill positions and engaging the
public as never before. As trusted voices in your communities, no one can better amplify our
message — participating in the 2020 Census is safe, easy, and important. And when you engage
constituents and partners, please emphasize that the Census Bureau is legally required to keep all
responses strictly confidential. We do so not only as a matter of law, but also as a matter of
organizational culture and professional practice. I look forward to our continued work together.
Thank you for your continued support. I will be glad to answer your questions.

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