Census only takes a moment; if you want better roads, more, take that moment

As more people are getting their reminders in the mail, census response numbers are going up in the county.

Numbers on Friday indicated the county had about a 40 percent response rate so far. It’s better than the state average of 31 percent but according to county census committee member Becky Beckman, although the increase since Sunday is nice, she was expecting better numbers as more people are receiving those census notices in the mail.

“It’s going pretty good,” she said. “The new numbers come out daily at between 4 and 5 o’clock in the afternoon. It may be a 24-hour yippee, but we will see.”

Beckman is concerned COVID-19 is impacting local residents’ ability to respond to the census. Locally planned events to promote the census have been canceled or rescheduled and with schools, businesses and employers closing down, the county census committee has lost several avenues to reach residents.

“We probably have some people that lack internet access or don’t really want to talk to someone on the phone,” she said. “That’s what those events were supposed to help with.”

She hopes those residents will be the ones who fill out the questionnaire that is set to come in mid-April.

Additionally, the lingering effect of scams and unsolicited mail sent to mailboxes daily makes residents skeptical of envelopes addressed to “Resident of” rather than the resident’s name.

The U.S. Census Bureau will send out census letters to every address and while people move, those addresses remain the same. “It should be completed by the person living at that address as of April 1,” Beckman pointed out.

The census data is important for several reasons including federal funding and grantmaking that lessens the local tax burden for large infrastructure projects like Jasper’s water main project as well as mobility assistance like Huntingburg’s transit system.

While it is hard to put a number on the exact amount each counted individual is worth, the list of programs the count impacts is long. A study by George Washington University examined 55 large census-guided spending programs from 2016. They determined Indiana received nearly $18 billion from these programs impacting everything from Medicaid, college grants, SNAP benefits, and school lunch programs to the planning and construction of highways, community development grants, business and industry loans, and transit funding.

That’s on a governmental level, but businesses also use census-derived data to make decisions about communities. The data is used to determine how they invest in a community, including where to open stores and which kinds of goods and services to offer. In effect, if you have your hopes set on a Chick-Fil-A or other big chain that commonly makes the list of wanted businesses in the area, the census data is pretty important.

And, completing the census online is simple. Residents will receive a letter with a 12-digit code that will be entered at https://my2020census.gov/ to proceed into supplying the information. A few questions and confirmations later — about a five-minute process — you are done.

If you can’t complete the process online — a problem Beckman acknowledged for some in the county — it can be completed by phone at 844-330-2020.

You will get several reminders by mail. This reporter received one last week and then a reminder on Wednesday.

For those worried about privacy, Census Bureau officials are required to keep all personally-identifiable information confidential until 72 years after it was collected for the decennial census. The bureau cannot share the information with any person or agency, including other federal government agencies.

Beckman also pointed out that although the dates residents could expect housecalls from census takers have been moved due to the coronavirus, residents should go online or pick up a phone to supply the census data to save tax money.

“Why would we want to pay someone $18.50 an hour to come by and help us answer ten questions that are pretty darn easy to answer,” Beckman said. “Come on. Let’s get this done.”

Also, completing the census is the law.