Ad Industry Needs to Oppose Census Citizenship Question by August 7

The Department of Commerce, which has oversight of the 2020 census, has approved the addition of a new census question that asks, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”  ANA members are concerned that the addition of a citizenship question would depress response among both non-citizens and their families (even if family members are indeed citizens).  That runs the risk of non-respondent bias by significantly undercounting immigrant, minority and low-income populations.  As one ANA member stated: “I believe that undocumented people will not report their presence and therefore the census will be under-reported, therefore skewing data, messing up budgets and providing inaccurate reporting.”