By Ben Rodgers
Editor
Important tasks can be easy to forget during a pandemic and the ensuing onslaught that devours our social media feeds, but don’t forget the census.
If you’re anything like me, you have a pile of paperwork at home you need to get through, and just like requesting an absentee ballot, time is running out for you to complete your 2020 national census online.
Conducted once every decade, the U.S. census counts our population and the results influence policy-making and planning for the next 10 years.
Now it’s easier than ever to make sure you are represented in the census because you can complete it online, by phone or by mail.
Dating back as far as the country’s founding fathers, the census is mandated by the Constitution and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, a nonpartisan government agency.
Everyone living in the country and five territories is required by law to complete it.
However, just as you are required by law to complete it, the Census Bureau is required by law to protect your answers.
Your answers will be used to produce statistics, nothing else.
The census won’t ask for social security numbers, bank accounts, credit card numbers or donations, and it won’t ask for citizenship status.
Responses are completely confidential.
If you don’t follow up and fill it out online by April 1, and then don’t subsequently fill out a paper form mailed to you,b census workers will eventually come in person to collect the results.
More people coming in contact with each other is something nobody wants with COVID-19 running rampant.
Do your part, complete your answers now.
When completed, you can be assured your information will be used to provide statistics that influence federal highway planning, local schools, housing assistance, wildlife restoration and about 130 other programs that affect our day-to-day lives.
Here’s a few more things the census influences that would help improve Greater Green Bay: low-income home energy assistance, crime victim assistance, community mental health services, small business development, hunter education and safety programs, firefighters assistance, the list goes on and on.
In 2015, the U.S. Census Bureau helped determine the distribution of more than $689 trillion.
With that much at stake, for programs that benefit everyone, especially the most vulnerable, it’s vital your voice is heard now.
For more information and to get started, visit 2020census.gov.