by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
The U.S. Constitution directs the federal government to
conduct a census every ten years, which it has done since 1790 when George
Washington was president. This year it’s
time to do the census again, and it is our civic duty to fill it out.
It also helps us and our communities when we fill it
out. Minnesota is at risk of losing a
Representative to Congress, especially if we’re undercounted because people who
live here don’t fill out the census.
Funding for so many things depends on an accurate count: highways,
Medicare, student loans and grants, school lunches, Head Start, USDA business
loans, and countless other things. It’s
your own tax money coming back to your own community, and one uncounted person
could mean a loss of $28,000 in funding over the next ten years. Businesses look at population data when
deciding where to open a location, so it’s good for community development if
everyone is counted.
There are both new
and familiar things about how the census will work this year, and libraries are
partnering with the Census Bureau to help you get the information you need
about the process.
The first thing I think you need to know is the timeline for
this. Mailings will start going out on
March 12, so it will begin soon. April 1 is considered Census Day; by that
date, you should have gotten mail that directs you to fill out the census,
unless you get your mail at a post office box.
Whether you fill out your census before, on, or after that day, you
should base your answers on where you live on April 1; if you’re a snowbird,
use the address where you live for more than six months of the year. Between May and July, census workers will
visit the homes of people who have not yet filled out their census another way.
The big change this year is that the census can be done
online. You will get a mailing with a
code that you can use to fill out the form online at the 2020census.gov
website. If you would like to fill out
the census online but you don’t have internet access, you can come to a public
library to use a computer. All four
libraries in Meeker County (Litchfield, Dassel, Grove City, and Cosmos) are
registered to be Questionnaire Assistance Centers, which means that our staff
will have gone through basic training to
help you and that we have public computers available for you to use to
complete your form.
If you don’t feel comfortable filling out your census online,
you have options. You will be able to
request a printed form or a visit from a census employee if you would prefer
that. You will be able to call the
official census number to give your answers over the phone. If you wait a few weeks without filling it
out online, a paper form will automatically be mailed to you (again, only if
you get your mail at home instead of at a PO box). And if you don’t fill it out either online or
by mail, a census worker will visit you in May or later, just like census workers
visited your great-grandparents, if they lived in the United States back
then.
Be careful to check that the website you go to is a .gov
address, so that it’s legitimate. You
will not get an email asking you to fill out the census, so don’t follow links
in any emails that claim to be from the census.
The Census Bureau will not call you to ask you to fill out the census,
although they may call you to follow up on questions you didn’t answer. Look carefully at the printed form you get to
be sure it’s really the census. And look
at the badge that a census worker is wearing if they visit your home. If you want to confirm that someone who comes
to your door is a local census worker, you can call 800-923-8282 to check.
The Census Bureau will never ask for your Social Security
number, your bank account or credit card numbers, money, or donations. They will not ask anything about your
political views or include information about a political party.
There will not be a long form for the census this year, so you
will not get a long list of detailed questions.
Everyone will get about ten simple questions about their address, the
names of people who live in their home, their relationships to the person
filling it out, their ages, and their race and ethnicity. There is not a citizenship question on the
census, and it is up to you to answer the questions as you choose and even to
skip some, although skipping questions will likely lead to a census employee
following up with you.
The individual information you enter on the census is
protected data. The Census Bureau cannot
share those details with anyone, even other parts of the federal government,
for 72 years. In 72 years, or 172 years,
your descendants may be grateful for the details about you that they can
access. In the meantime, no one can see
it.
I’ve been through several trainings about this year’s
census, and I’ve met with the committee that’s working to get a complete count
of Meeker County. I am not a census
employee, and the rest of the library staff are not either. But we will be glad to help you find the
information you need about the census, even if sometimes that’s just finding
the best way to put you in touch with the experts at the census helpline.
I know it can be scary to share your personal information,
and that it can be intimidating to know how to fill out the census. But it is essential to our community, and you
can fill it out in the way you prefer. Stop
in to talk to me at the library if you have questions. Everyone counts!
