After delays caused by the pandemic, the U.S. Census Bureau has reopened its area field offices and restarted 2020 Census field operations in Durham and all over the country.

This means if you haven’t yet filled out the census, or if you live in a rural part of our community, a census worker may soon end up at your front door.

While Census Day was on April 1, and many people have already received multiple invitations to fill out the census via mail, North Carolina’s response rate is still only at 56 percent.

Normally, to combat low response rates, census workers would have already started going door to door before April 1 to encourage people to fill out the form and provide the necessary materials, but because of the pandemic, field operations had to wait until May 11 to resume.

Michael Cook is the Chief of Public Information at the U.S. Census Bureau. He said census workers are now dropping off 2020 Census invitation packets at front doors of households in areas where the majority do not receive mail at their home.

“In Durham, you’ll see that that average response is just shy of 55 percent, but we know that Durham has more than 6,400 households that are part of what we call our ‘rural count,’” Cook said. “So these are those households that don’t receive mail at their address and so those are the homes that we’re visiting now and dropping off packets and inviting people to respond to the census for the very first time.”

According to the Census Bureau, about 5 percent of households are counted nationwide in this operation. That’s around 6.8 million homes. While the national rate of response is currently just over 60 percent, Cook expects this percentage to dramatically increase once these rural areas are reached.

The U.S. Census Bureau has counted the countries’ population every 10 years since 1790. This count is mandated by the constitution as it shapes many different aspects of our communities.

Overall, the census determines how $675 billion dollars of federal funding gets distributed. Data from the census also influences state House and Senate representation decisions over the next 10 years. Every person not counted in the community is a loss of more than $1,800 annually in state and federal funding.

So to get an accurate count of the population is critical and requires a lot of manpower.

Cook said when census workers go door to door, the operation is contactless as workers follow social distancing and other guidelines from local health departments – including wearing personal protective equipment.

“For the staff that we’re bringing in, we have mandated a virtual COVID-19 training so all of our staff members have been trained about social distancing and how to conduct our operations safely,” Cook said. “We’re also issuing to them PPE to ensure their safety and that we’re following protocols from the local level.”

He  said all census workers will receive face masks, gloves and hand sanitizer when out in the field.

“We want a complete and accurate count, but we want to ensure as we conduct the 2020 Census that the safety of the public and the staff is most important for us,” Cook said.

You can respond to the census all the way up until October 31, but Cook said you might not want to wait that long.

“We encourage people to respond early, because later this summer we will be sending census takers out to households who have not self-responded,” Cook said. “When we do that it actually raises the cost of the 2020 Census but also it means that you’ll have to come into contact with a census taker.”

To respond to the 2020 census, you can do so now by going online here. Additionally, if you want to apply to be a census worker, you still can – just click here.

Lead photo courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau.

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