In late July it was estimated that North Carolina is at risk of losing more than $7 billion dollars in federal funding if the remaining four million uncounted residents do not participate in the 2020 Census before its deadline at the end of the month.

In mid-August, the US Census Bureau moved the 2020 Census completion deadline from October 31 to September 30 – meaning local jurisdictions are now pushing harder than ever to get all their residents counted.

Overall, the census determines how $675 billion dollars of federal funding is distributed over the next 10 years. Every person not counted in the community is a loss of more than $1,800 dollars annually in state and federal funding. The U.S. Census Bureau has counted the countries’ population every 10 years since 1790.

The census is also used to determine the number of seats each state has in the US House of Representatives, and it is used for redistricting at the national, state and local level. Assuming North Carolina has an accurate census count this year, the state is projected to gain an additional seat in the House.

As of September 15, 87.7 percent of North Carolinians have responded to the census. This percentage puts North Carolina as the state with the ninth lowest response rate. With these comparatively low response rates, individual counties in the state are stepping up to push for a more accurate count of their populations.

Chatham County Commissioner Karen Howard said Chatham is now at the phase where they are doing door-to-door checks to encourage people to be counted. The county’s $133 million dollars in annual federal funding is contingent on an accurate and representative count.

“Every 10 years we will get an opportunity to count the people in this county and that count matters on so many levels,” Howard said. “We’re funding at a federal level for the kinds of things that we get for school districts, for affordable housing and for poverty. When you are undercounted, that undercount exists, regardless of population spurts – and we’ve had numerous population spurts at the county and state level.”

Howard said if residents are not counted, there will be a significant lack of funding on a county and statewide level – and if the county and state continues to grow in size, both will not receive enough support to meet the needs of their residents.

“It’s so important that people understand that we have this one opportunity to really count ourselves, count who we are and figure out what are the needs of the community and then use that information to ensure that we have the support and the infrastructure and the funding to meet the needs of the people of the state,” Howard said.

Howard said she has a team of bilingual and multilingual people dedicated to getting the word out about the census as the closing date approaches. However, as of September 15, more than 30 percent of Chatham County households have still not completed the 2020 Census. Additionally, in Orange County more than 28 percent of residents have yet to fill it out.

Howard said while these rates aren’t terrible in comparison to the last census 10 years ago – it’s still not ideal – especially considering 2020 is the first year people are able to fill out the census online.

“We are slightly ahead of where we were the last time we had a census count, but that was not high enough,” Howard said. “We would really like to get as many people accounted for as possible.”

To fill out the census before the closing date on September 30, click here.

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