The once-a-decade ritual of counting the people living in the United States is underway.
Montgomery County residents are clicking on to the internet, picking up the phone or using the mail to fill out the 2020 census. April 1 is observed as Census Day, when the government and local community partners join together to remind people to send in their forms.
Postcards were mailed to households in recent weeks telling people how to respond. As of Sunday, more than 36% of Montgomery County residents had completed the survey, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The self-response rate is below 40% for Indiana and the nation.
The field workers who usually hit the pavement in local communities promoting an accurate count have been sidelined because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Field operations are currently scheduled to resume in mid-April.
“The Census Bureau is taking this step to help protect the health and safety of the American public, Census Bureau employees, and everyone who will go through the hiring process for temporary census taker positions,” the bureau said in a statement.
Due to the pandemic, the window for responding to the census has been extended until Aug. 14. Census takers are scheduled to begin interviewing households that have not submitted a response on May 28, two weeks later than planned.
Census staff is now waiting until at least mid-April to assist people with the forms in grocery stores and community centers.
An accurate population count is tied to millions of dollars in federal funding distributed to local communities. The count also determines the number of congressional districts in each state. Indiana currently has nine seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Indiana received more than $17.9 billion in federal funding in fiscal year 2016 based on census data.
Gaming revenue, cigarette and excise tax dollars and road and street funding are all based on population counts. The state library also uses the count to distribute money to eligible local library districts, and alcohol and tobacco permits are determined on the population.