The Census Bureau completed the first major field operation for the 2020 Census on time and under budget. The In-Field Address Canvassing operation, including quality control activities, concluded on October 11. Address Canvassing improves and refines the Census Bureau’s address list of households nationwide, which is necessary to deliver invitations to respond to the census. Listers completed this review for 50,038,437 addresses and 1,115,142 blocks across the nation. The remaining two-thirds of addresses were reviewed as part of the In-Office Address Canvassing operation.

The Census Bureau fielded two national events in October. First, the Census Bureau held a “launch” for its national recruitment effort on October 22 to help the effort to hire approximately 500,000 temporary workers in 2020. In addition to a national event held in Phoenix, Arizona, nearly 4,000 local recruiting events were held around the country in support. Second, on October 28 Director Dillingham gave opening remarks to approximately 1,000 fifth graders and teachers at the Statistics in Schools national kickoff event October 28 in Memphis, TN. Students participated in several activity stations to showcase program activities.

Additionally, The Census Bureau released the “2010 Demonstration Data Products” on October 29 that tabulated select 2010 Census data products using the new disclosure avoidance methods. This release will allow data users to assess implementation of new methods prior to presenting findings at a Committee on National Statistics workshop on December 11-12.

An anomaly provision in the initial Continuing Resolution (CR) gave the 2020 Census Program the flexibility to execute several items in the month of October that had been planned in November. This flexibility permitted the 2020 Census to streamline, provide certainty, and get ahead of schedule on the contract obligations required for the final push to the 2020 Census. These actions resulted in a total negative variance of $67 million (-12 percent) for the month of October 2019 against the original planned level, which will resolve by the end of November.