Advertising Trade Association Responds to U.S. Census Citizenship Question

The major trade associations representing the advertising industry — are jointly writing to express opposition to the addition of the new census question that asks, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”

We are concerned that the addition of a citizenship question would depress response among both non-citizens and their families (even if family members are indeed citizens). That runs the risk of non-respondent bias by significantly undercounting immigrant, minority, and low-income populations. If immigrants and others avoid the national head-count, the census results will be flawed.

This raises significant issues in the world of marketing, as flawed results would distort the representation of U.S. population estimates and the research benchmarked to it. Since the census is the foundation for population estimates that support the marketing industry, inaccurate census data would lead to misallocated marketing resources. It could have a particularly negative impact on media that serve multicultural communities, the companies which research them, and the agencies which help advertise to them. The value marketers see in those consumer segments would be understated and investments reduced.

As one of our members stated, “I believe that undocumented people will not report their presence and therefore the census will be underreported, skewing data, messing up budgets, and providing inaccurate reporting.”

We respectfully request that this citizenship question NOT be added to the 2020 Census.

View the full letter submitted by the Advertising Trade Association