The Census Bureau is considering a new way to ask Americans about their race or origin in the 2020 census.
The questionnaire may eliminate the words “race” or “origin,” according to a report from the Pew Research Center released Thursday. Instead, the census may ask people to check the “categories” that describe them.
The Census Bureau will send out test-census forms to 1.2 million households later this fall that will ask: “Which categories describe person 1?” Then, respondents will be able to choose from the usual list or racial and ethnic categories, as seen below.
Census forms now can be confusing and unclear, as they have two separate questions about race and Hispanic origin. Some Americans say they don’t know what “race” means and how the word is different from “origin,” and the change looks to address those issues.
The test will also add a new Middle East and North Africa category.
Ann Morning, a member of the Federal Register’s National Advisory Committee and New York University race scholar said she believes “the beauty of simply referring to ‘categories’ is that it avoids that problem of people getting hung up on the terminology. So I would expect this term will allow people to answer the question more quickly, and to feel more free to check more than one box if they wish, and to lead to a lower non-response rate on that question.”
