Rural Virginia Can’t Afford Another Undercount: How the Census Proposal Affects Rural Communities

In rural Virginia, a family’s address may be a P.O. box. A child may live with grandparents. A farmworker may move between homes as seasons change. None of that means they should be harder to count.

Yet, proposed changes to the 2030 Census could make it more difficult to determine where some rural residents live. For communities already facing barriers to a complete count, the consequences could affect how accurately their needs are represented in decisions about schools, health care, childcare, and other essential services.

Rural Communities Already Face Barriers to Being Counted

Reliable internet service and conventional street addresses cannot be taken for granted in every rural household. Families may use P.O. boxes or rural route addresses, and reaching homes for in-person census follow-up can require additional time and resources.

That makes responding to the census harder, not less important. Census methods need to reflect how people actually live, rather than assuming every household has the same internet access, mailing address, or government records.

In 2020, approximately 71 percent of Virginia households responded to the census on their own, with lower participation in many rural areas. Accomack County on the Eastern Shore had a self-response rate of about 38 percent, the lowest in the state.

Those figures measure self-response, not the final population count, which also includes follow-up visits and other methods. Still, they show why rural outreach matters. Rural Virginia is also home to grandparents raising grandchildren, families sharing housing, and agricultural workers whose living arrangements may change throughout the year.

Tax Records May Not Show Where Families Actually Live

Under the proposal, a person’s usual residence would be based on where they lawfully spent the greatest number of days between January 3 and April 1 of the census year. Tax returns, W-2 forms, and other government records would play a greater role in supporting that determination.

But an address on a tax form does not always tell the full story of where someone lives.

These are potential risks, not automatic exclusions. The proposal allows the Bureau to consider additional administrative records, and it does not say that everyone without a tax return or street address will be left out. But rural families deserve clear guidance about how those records will be used and checked for accuracy.

Farmworker Families Could Face Added Uncertainty

Agriculture is Virginia’s largest private industry, supporting more than 381,800 jobs and generating an estimated $82.3 billion in annual economic impact. It relies on workers across farming, dairy, poultry processing, and other areas, including approximately 7,000 seasonal workers on H-2A visas.

Some workers move between farms, live in employer-provided housing, or lack traditional residential addresses. The proposed residence test raises questions about where they would be counted when administrative records do not match where they actually spent their time.

The proposal would also exclude certain noncitizens without lawful permanent residence from the population count used to determine congressional seats. That could include some workers living in Virginia on temporary agricultural visas.

Rural communities, including the Eastern Shore, Shenandoah Valley, and Southside, need clear rules for counting seasonal workers and families whose housing changes with their work.

An Inaccurate Count Affects the Picture of Community Needs

Population data inform decisions about resources for rural schools, health services, nutrition programs, and childcare. Researchers at George Washington University have found that the share of people living in poverty and the share living in rural areas help explain major differences in states’ federal funding patterns.

For children, the stakes include services such as Title I education programs, special education, Head Start, school meals, Medicaid, and CHIP. Different programs use different funding formulas, and not all depend on the decennial census in the same way. Some use census-derived estimates alongside income data or other government records.

What is consistent is the need for a reliable picture of who lives in each community. If people are missed or assigned to the wrong location, the data used for planning may not reflect the families who depend on those services. The size of any funding impact would vary by program.

Between 2010 and 2020, 62 of Virginia’s 133 localities lost population. For places already experiencing population decline, an additional undercount could deepen the mismatch between actual needs and the numbers used to plan for them. Census counts also influence decisions over the following decade.

What We’re Asking For

We have asked the Census Bureau to:

Take Action: Make Your Voice Count

Rural families, educators, local officials, farm organizations, and health care providers know the challenges of reaching their communities. The Census Bureau needs that perspective.

Where a child lives should not make them harder to count. Every rural Virginia community deserves to be seen accurately.