Are You Counted? It's IMPORTANT!
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The Census Count date was April 1. Have you mailed back your form? If not you still have time. The important thing is to list everyone living at your address on April 1.
"An accurate count is essential to our area. Census data drives the funding of many government services. A complete count is crucial to Bay County and Michigan" said Bay City Mayor Charles Brunner.
Billions of dollars in federal funding is tied directly to the Census count. It is estimated that the state loses $10,000 per person for those not counted. And that loss goes on for a full ten years until the next census count. The state could also lose one seat in congress based on population.
The Census is a Constitutional mandate to enumerate every person living in the country. In the last weeks of March the Census Bureau mailed 120 million forms to US households. The address were gathered from public and commercial sources but was checked by people. During 2009 150,000 census employees walked every street in the country checking addresses.
According to Robert Groves, Directory of the US Census Bureau, speaking on the PBS news hour, 52% of the forms had been returned by March 31, 2010. That's some 62 million households. The hope is to get 75% or more mailed back. In Mid-April the Bureau will begin sending some 700,000 census workers door to door to count residents who have not returned their form.
Completing the census form is easy. The official line is ? questions, 10 minutes". Most people can do it in 5 minutes. "This is the shortest census form in living memory" said Groves. (The 1790 census was shorter asking only name, age, sex and race.)
The Census treats your personal data as totally private and secure. For each person in the residence the form asks for name, relation, sex, age and birth date, race, and if the person sometimes lives elsewhere.
The form also asks if the person is of Hispanic origin. This is separate from the race question. These statistics are essential because of the many legislative and court mandated services, funding, and administrative tasks that must address minority and ethnic groups.
Mailing the form back is by far the better way to be counted. It costs the government about 42 cents to collect a form by mail. It costs about 60 dollars to send a person to collect the data.
A complete count means more than just citizens. The constitution calls for counting everyone. Census workers will try to find the sick, the homeless, those in prison. They'll count citizens and non-citizens. They will cover ethnic and racial populations speaking 59 different languages.
December 31, 2010 is the deadline for the census to be completed and the results to be presented to the President. It's a monumental task but one that's been done for 230 years. This year is no exception. The important thing is this: BE COUNTED! Too much depends on it for anyone to be missed.
Bay County Complete Count Committee meets at City Hall
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Stephen Kent |
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