April 1 is Census Day, and I have to admit that it didn’t used to mean a lot to me either.
I knew that it was a tool to count people living in the U.S., but I really put no thought into why that was so important. This year, as part of my work, I was told to learn about the Census because we were going to be working on getting people counted who are typically not, and wow, have I learned a lot.
First and foremost, each person who doesn’t fill out the Census in WV will cause us to lose at least $2,755 in federal funding each year, which means that for each person not counted in the Census, $27,550 will be lost over the next 10 years. A family of four who is not counted will be a loss of over $110,000.
Yeah, it’s that important.
Pell grants and Title I funds for schools with high-poverty numbers are given funding directly based on Census data. Our roads, SNAP, WIC, Medicaid, HUD, and CHIP, to name a few, will lose funding without accurate Census data. In 2010, we were one of the states with the lowest response rates. We know that our geography has a lot to do with it, but so does a general distrust of the government.
But here’s the thing: The Census is bound to such a vow of confidentiality that no one is going to tell your landlord that your boyfriend is living with you. In fact, I attended a webinar on the Census, and a story was told that a death threat was scrawled on a Census form toward a president and that information wasn’t allowed to be given to the Secret Service. See, the role of the Census is not only to count who lives where.
The Census used to be primarily for determining how many seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, but our state uses the data to redraw districts for both chambers of Congress. There is a huge chance that we will lose a seat in D.C. based upon our Census data, and I personally don’t feel as if less representation on the federal level is a great thing. More than 24 percent of West Virginia’s population live in hard-to-count neighborhoods, so it’s so important that we do what we can to ensure that everyone is counted.
Postcards will soon start arriving to let you know that Census 2020 is about to kick off. This year is the first year the Census can be completed online. It also can be filled out over the phone and on paper. Keep in mind that paper forms are not mailed to P.O. boxes, so you’ll have to find another way of completing your form if that’s your case.
And remember this as well: If you don’t fill out the Census, then you will have people knocking on your door. Want to avoid that? Then fill out the Census.
Census.gov is a great resource for learning about the importance of the Census and how it works. The data is used for so many things. If someone is looking to build a grocery store in your neighborhood, they look at the Census data to see how many people live there, what the income is of the area, etc.
Our public transit system relies on the Census. Our funding for roads, education, housing, representation, grants — the list goes on and on — depends on it. Talk to your pastor about the Census and how you can make sure that church members are completing it. Talk to your employer about it. Talk to your neighbor and school principal.
Remember that everybody counts in 2020.
