The only resident of Nebraska’s one-person town was surprised when 2020 census data showed that her town’s population had grown.
A new person lived in Elsie Eiler’s town of Monowi, Nebraska, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Well, then someone’s been hiding from me, and there’s nowhere to live but my house,” Eiler said Wednesday. “But if you find out who he is, let me know?”
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That man is Noise, and he is not real. Noise was created by an algorithm to protect Eiler’s personal information, according to the Census Bureau.
“What you’re seeing there is the noise we add to the data so you can’t figure out who is living there,” said a census spokeswoman, according to the Omaha News-Herald. “It protects the privacy of the respondent and the confidentiality of the data they provide.”
Nice piece on Nebraska ghost towns.
“Second resident of Nebraska’s one-person town just a figment of Census Bureau’s imagination” https://t.co/qmUFJQ2J8r
— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) August 24, 2021
The bureau will shift respondents from one census block to another in certain situations. Although confusing at the local level, such as when a town only has one resident, the numbers remain accurate at the congressional district level.
“We take the same number of people, but we move them around,” the census spokeswoman said. “When you look at it all the way out, it’s correct.”
“The bottom line is, the census is putting additional protocols so these people can’t be identified.”
David Drozd, the research coordinator for the Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said these numbers are still debatable.
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“The reason is honorable — to protect people’s privacy,” he said. “But there’s going to be places that don’t match reality.”
