Desperate for workers, Census bumps pay in parts of Pa.

Bureau will pay $27.50/hr in some parts of Pennsylvania

• Ed Mahon
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Ed Mahon comes to Spotlight PA from PA Post, where he covered state politics and policy, produced radio stories that were broadcast on public media stations throughout the state and on NPR’s national newscasts, and co-wrote a weekday newsletter. Prior to joining PA Post, Ed worked for six years as an investigative and political reporter for the York Daily Record, part of the USA Today Network. His reporting on failures in Pennsylvania’s system for protecting domestic abuse victims was a finalist in the national 2018 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists in the local reporting category. He was also part of a team whose coverage of the criminal justice system, including the aggressive use of civil asset forfeiture by York County prosecutors, received the 2018 G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. Before joining the York Daily Record, Ed covered K-12 education at the Centre Daily Times in State College and worked as a stringer for suburban sections of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

 Emily Cohen for WHYY

Tricia Reedy Jones (center) is a Partnership Specialist for Philadelphia Regional Census Center. She came to Royersford for a recruitment information session for census takers.

Emily Cohen for WHYY

Tricia Reedy Jones (center) is a Partnership Specialist for Philadelphia Regional Census Center. She came to Royersford for a recruitment information session for census takers.  (Emily Cohen for WHYY)

• The U.S. Census Bureau is having difficulty finding enough workers for this year’s count, WHYY’s Ximena Conde reports. Conde, who attended a recruitment session on Saturday, reports that a strong economy makes the jobs less appealing, and some “potential applicants cite personal safety and ethical concerns over data security as additional reservations for signing up.”

• To help with recruitment, the Census Bureau recently bumped the pay in some areas, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Michaelle Bond reports. In Chester County, for instance, the pay rate went from $19.50 an hour to $27.50 an hour for the workers who go door to door to follow up with people who don’t respond to the questionnaire.

• This interactive map shows how close the Census Bureau is to meeting its recruiting goals in each county, along with current pay rates. Philadelphia, Chester and Schuylkill are the only counties in Pennsylvania where the bureau has met more than 60 percent of its recruiting goals.

• An accurate count in the U.S. Census is important for many reasons. It influences how much federal money goes to states and communities, as well as how many representatives each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. Pennsylvania is already expected to lose one House member (from the current 18) because of slow population growth.

• By April 1, every home in the country should receive an invitation to fill out a census questionnaire.

• In the fall, Pennsylvania lawmakers approved $4 million to help boost the census participation rate (New Jersey approved $9 million). Some private groups are chipping in funds to support the Pa.-based census advocacy coalition Keystone Counts, including the William Penn Foundation.

Best of the rest

Matt Rourke / AP Photo

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference in Philadelphia, on Tuesday, May 14, 2019. (Matt Rourke / AP Photo)

• Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, joined a multi-state coalition of attorneys general challenging an Arkansas effort to ban legal abortion after 18 weeks and impose other restrictions on the procedure, PennLive’s Ivey DeJesus reports. Earlier this week, DeJesus reported that there were 30,364 abortions performed in Pennsylvania in 2018, an increase of a few hundred over the prior year.

• Republican state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz is encouraging commissioners in the counties she represents — Centre and Clinton — to pass a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” ordinance to prohibit the county from enforcing or funding the enforcement of a broad range of gun restrictions. Val Finnell, the Pennsylvania director of Gun Owners of America, told me that, as far as he knows, Borowicz is the first state lawmaker to endorse these types of ordinances.

• One of many big questions about these ordinances is whether courts would say they run afoul of the state’s preemption law, which has stood in the way of municipalities passing and enforcing their own laws to restrict gun rights.

• There’s a new district attorney in Delaware County, and his arrival is having a direct impact on one person in particular. Democrat Jack Stollsteimer says he’s dropping a retail theft case that dates back to 1992 against David Sheppard, who served more than 25 years of a life sentence for a second-degree murder conviction. Sheppard left prison only after receiving clemency from Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. The previous DA, Katayoun Copeland, wanted to use Sheppard’s alleged 1992 theft of jeans from a retail outlet to effectively override Wolf’s commutation and keep Sheppard behind bars, arguing that victim’s family was not given the opportunity to speak against Sheppard’s request for clemency.

• African American leaders from Erie attended the State Board of Education meeting Wednesday to urge the board to approve the city’s community college application. “We’ve waited long enough,” Gary Horton, president of the Erie NAACP, told the board.  Leaders in Erie want the county to become home to the state’s 15th public community college, arguing that the community needs a community college to meet the demands of employers and help lift people out of poverty. The board has delayed action, and scheduled an evidentiary hearing on the issue for March 18 in Erie.

• State Sen. John DiSanto may be in for a race this year. The Pennsylvania Capital-Star reports that George Scott is planning to challenge the GOP incumbent. Scott, a Democrat, performed well in his 2018 challenge to U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R), but came up short. He told the Capital-Star‘s Elizabeth Hardison that he didn’t feel the “internal call” to make another run at Perry this year (that’s the role being played by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale). The 15th Senate district, which includes Perry County and much of Dauphin, flipped from Democrats to Republicans in 2016.