Nebraska Places in Top Five Nationally for Census Self-Response

Despite the disruption of a global pandemic, more than seven out of 10 Nebraskans took time to complete the 2020 Census on their own; enough to put Nebraska in the top five nationally. A local news program called on the expertise of UNO’s Center for Public Affairs Research (CPAR) to talk about the reasons behind the success at a state level.

David Drozd, research coordinator for the UNO Center for Public Affairs Research, sat down with "Consider This" host Cathy Wyatt to talk about the 2020 census results.

Nebraskans did their part when responding to the 2020 census, and Drozd believes that what helped bring such a result to fruition was the online version of the census, which was available for the first time. It allowed people the flexibility to fill out their responses on their own time.

“The exciting thing from this initial wave of data is that our growth was higher than expected,” Drozd said. “We thought we’d come in very close to where we were in the 2000s around seven percent, but it was almost seven and a half. So that might not sound like a lot, but then again it was 20 thousand more people than we thought.”

Watch the rest of the interview on Nebraska Public Media’s website.