Only a few days remain to respond to the 2020 U.S. Census and Iowans who haven’t filled out the form yet are being urged to do so.
State Data Center coordinator Gary Krob says the Census Bureau will only be collecting data through next Wednesday, September 30th. “Iowa currently has just over a 70% response rate,” Krob says. “We saw about one in four households that haven’t responded. We need to get those responses in as quickly as we can. The bureau is actually going door-to-door to all of these non-responders trying to get the responses. It’s also still possible to respond either online or on the phone.”
Krob says there are several ways to respond before next week to make sure you and your family are counted. “Initially what they would’ve gotten would’ve been a postcard which you then go to a website to log in and fill it out,” Krob says. “You can still fill it out online. If they have a paper form, they can fill that out and mail it in as well, or there is a phone number that they can call and get it done.”
You can call 844-330-2020 or go online to 2020Census.gov. Responding to the census may not seem all that important, but Krob says those numbers can have a big impact. “One is representation. We use these numbers to draw not just our congressional districts for Washington D.C. but also our state legislative districts, the House and Senate,” Krob says. “School district boundaries are readjusted every ten years based on these numbers, so, representation really is a key component to the decennial census.”
There’s also the matter of billions of dollars in federal funding that’s based on census figures. The 2020 Census data will be on President Trump’s desk by December 31st and we’ll start seeing the numbers roll out early next year.
(By Janelle Tucker, KMCH, Manchester)