Today is Census Day! By now, you should have received a 2010 Census form in the mail – it’s crucial that you take 10 minutes today to fill it out and send it back. Rest assured, the government isn’t just idly prying into your household business: The results of the census are used to decide how more than $400 billion of federal funds will be distributed to different communities. Your participation in the census will directly impact the quality of life – including schools, roads, and services – in your neighborhood. Don’t shortchange your community, stand up and be counted! Click here for more information about the 2010 Census, and read more below about Census Day below.
From 2010.Census.gov:
Communities nationwide are urging their residents to take 10 minutes on Thursday, April 1 — Census Day — to fill out and mail back their 2010 Census forms if they haven’t already done so. As the official reference date for the once-a-decade civic ceremony, Census Day will serve as the point-in-time benchmark for the nation’s population count for the next 10 years.
The U.S. Census Bureau mailed or hand-delivered about 134 million 2010 Census questionnaires to households in March. To date, just over half of those households have mailed back their census forms, an important milestone. South Dakota and North Dakota have achieved some of the highest rates of mail return so far (62 percent and 61 percent, respectively), followed by Nebraska (60 percent).
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Residents still have time to fill out and mail back their 10-question census form, saving the government about $57 for each household that does not have to be visited by an enumerator. The U.S. Constitution requires an enumeration of every person living in the U.S. Every household that fails to send back its census form by mail must be visited by a census taker starting in May — at significant taxpayer cost. The easiest and best way to be counted in the census is to fill out and return your form by mail. If every household across the nation mailed back its completed form, taxpayers could reduce the cost of administering the census by about $1.5 billion.
“I’d like nothing more than to return money to the taxpayers following this census because they mailed back the census forms at a record rate,” said Census Bureau Director Robert Groves. “In the end, the American public’s willingness to participate in the 2010 Census will determine its success and how much money we’re able to save.”
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