The Census Bureau roundly disagrees. “We are sufficiently staffed, with high productivity, and we continue adding people to do the work,” Timothy P. Olson, who manages the census on a day-to-day basis, said in an interview. “I believe we’re in a really good place to complete the data collection by Sept. 30.”

Mr. Olson said the last part of the tally — when census-takers count the 61 million households that have not submitted a census form — was proceeding a third faster than predicted. The bureau projected it would be 28 percent done by now, he said, instead it is 37.3 percent done.

He said shifting paper census surveys online, giving census takers iPhones and access to a mobile app, and offering performance bonuses had made the count far nimbler than it was a decade ago. Census-takers, he said, are two-thirds more productive than forecast.

And although the bureau has struggled to find door-knockers, he said, over 160,000 new hires being trained now or in the coming days will fill its need.

That said, the bureau has perhaps more uncounted households than at this stage in any previous census — and under the worst circumstances in memory. Just as crucial, the speedup in the deadline gives experts less time to check the data than ever before. Inside Census Bureau headquarters, officials are assessing which quality checks must be jettisoned and data-processing software rewritten to finish on time.

And on the ground, the early door-knocking has been riddled with kinks like sloppy training, a clunky mobile app and unsettling encounters with people not wearing masks and who were unconcerned about spreading the coronavirus to the stranger on their porch.

Source: New York Times

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