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).
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.
Census data is used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and to distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds annually. In 2000, the nation reversed a three-decade decline in mail rates, achieving a participation rate of 72 percent.
All census responses are confidential. Answers are protected by law and cannot be shared with anyone. The Census Bureau takes extreme measures to protect the identity of individuals and businesses. By law, the Census Bureau cannot share respondents’ individually identifiable answers with anyone, including tribal housing authorities, other federal agencies and law enforcement entities.
As of Thursday, Brown County’s participation rate is sitting at 55% and climbing. See our Homepage for daily participation rates in Brown County.
Census forms are available at the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce for those who did not receive a form in the mail.