By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor
Texas residents are encouraged to complete the U.S. Census.
“It’s really, really key to get an accurate count, because we only do it once every 10 years,” Stephen Buckner, assistant director of Communications at the U.S. Census Bureau, said. “If you’re not counted, it’s not just a one-year mistake, it’s a 10-year mistake.”
The census helps determine congressional and state legislative districts, and Texas is expected to pick up as many as three new congressional seats.
Census results are also used to allocate funding for programs and services.
“The census is so important that our founding fathers actually put it right up on the top of the Constitution. We’ve been doing it since 1790,” Buckner said. “It’s about representation, but it’s also about money that comes back to state and local governments for key programs, public services like health clinics, schools, roads, food and farm assistance programs, even unemployment insurance. For rural America, it also means services for water and waste disposal, rural business development grants and rural housing preservation grants.”
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic interrupting the Census Bureau’s normal operations, response rates are on par with what they expected at this time, he said. The national response rate is currently around 60 percent.
In Texas, however, the response rate is just under 55 percent, according to data provided by the Census Bureau. Buckner noted it may be lower because some rural Texans have not yet received questionnaires.
“Texas is unique in that we have a lot of households that are more rural areas where we need to deliver questionnaire packages, because they either get their mail from a P.O. box or they don’t have a city-style address,” Buckner said. “That operation was halted back in the beginning of April because of the pandemic. We’re starting to resume those operations right now to deliver questionnaires across the state to about 327,000 households, so hopefully we’ll be able to deliver those packages soon.”
People will have a couple of months to respond to the mailed questionnaire before Census personnel start going door-to-door to count households in-person, Buckner said.
There is a census ID for each household located on the questionnaire, which can be used to complete the census online, by phone or by mail.
For those worried about exposure to the coronavirus from other individuals, Buckner said the best way to avoid a visit by a census-taker is to fill out the census after receiving the questionnaire.
Locally-hired census employees will begin canvassing neighborhoods later in the summer in as safe a manner as possible, he added.
“Those activities will begin in mid-August,” he said. “We are going to have to hire about 500,000 workers nationwide to follow up with households that don’t respond. Anybody that’s coming to work for the Census Bureau is going through the CDC guideline trainings to make sure they know how to interact with the public in a safe way. Every census worker will be issued a mask, gloves and hand sanitizer to conduct their work and activities.”
Completing the census takes about five minutes.
Buckner noted the Census Bureau has conducted research in recent years on making the questionnaire simple and easy to understand, as well as finding the best way to reach rural populations. He urged people to respond as soon as possible to help ensure their community is represented fairly in the future.
“While everybody’s still practicing social distancing, this is something that you could do from the comfort and safety of your home,” he said. “It makes a really big difference in Texas and across your local communities to respond either online at 2020census.gov, by phone or by mail. As soon as you get those questionnaire packets, you’ll have a census ID. Go ahead and respond and make a difference in your community for the next 10 years.”
For more information, visit https://2020census.gov.