Reply to DC had largest percentage drop in population in nation

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At many people in DC did not fill out census b/c they were  busy, angry, afraid of their immigration status, or remote working somewhere else.[/quote]
Relevance?[/quote]

Not the PP, but they are correct that DC's population is especially hard to count right now. The Urban Institute concluded that DC's population was undercounted by over 14k residents in 2020, larger as a % of population than any state.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/11/02/nearly-14400-washingtonians-werent-counted-in-the-census-new-report-says/

It's not a big reach to suspect that the Census population change numbers may also be not as reliable as usual in cities like DC. For example, the Census Bureau isn't even releasing a lot of their usual statistics for 2020 because the data aren't good enough.

https://www.rollcall.com/2021/07/29/census-wont-release-key-annual-survey-because-of-pandemics-impact-on-data/

Without knowing how this particular sausage is made, it's not unreasonable to be cautious about interpreting these numbers also.[/quote]
First of all, I do enjoy this kabuki dance where DC demands to be treated equivalent to a state, but then should not be compared to states when data is bad but still compared to states when people want to create favorable comparisons.

Second, this is honestly a losers game to try to debunk official government statistics. However, to be clear, regardless of whether or not the total number of people is accurate, what is currently being measured is changes in population. These are two different things and the directional shift is very clear and was evident pre-Covid. The DC government itself estimates that population growth for the five years from 2015-2020 declined from the first five years of the decade and averaged a measly 0.6%. The DC government itself estimates that in 2020 they permanently lost over 9,000 net residents. The official Federal government statistics are that the population loss in 2020 was approximately 15,000 and in 2020 it was 20,000.

Argue what the “true” numbers are all you want but the direction is clear and undisputed. [/quote]

Um, I work for a statistical agency. Not on this particular set of statistics, but I'm not completely ignorant of the issues at play, nor of the many data sources that might be used to make estimates like this. I have no doubt that the creators of this data series are doing the best they can with the data they have access to. I'm also not saying that these numbers aren't correct, or even that the changes aren't directionally correct. It's not unlikely that they are, though it's also not unlikely that they're not. I'm just saying that the pandemic has thrown the usual methods that are used to produce these types of statistics for a massive loop, and that the various issues that have arisen disproportionately affect the accuracy of statistics in cities like DC. For that reason, we should take these numbers with a much larger than usual grain of salt, at least until we've had time to observe another year or two. It's way premature to assert that the sky is falling.[/quote]
Caveat, caveat, caveat… “therefore” blah, blah, blah. Okay buddy.

It literally does not matter if DCs current population is 710,000 or 670,000. What matters is the delta over the past 12-24 months. The question is whether DCs population is increasing or decreasing. More people equals broadened tax base and growing economy, less people can signal the inverse.

While there are questions about the methods for deriving the census number, the methods for estimating the delta are different. While I applaud the effort, if as you state you don’t disagree on the direction, I am curious what it is that you are doing except knowingly spreading FUD?[/quote]

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