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2020 U.S. Census Begins in March

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The 2020 United States Census begins in mid-March as American households will be asked to provide the government with basic information to create a statistical demographic profile of the nation.
Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution requires that a national census be taken every ten years for two purposes. First, representation in the House of Representatives is based on population. The number of representatives each state has is based on the results of the census. Second, the distribution of federal tax dollars back to the states is also based on population. Over $675 billion is returned to local communities annually for public services such as transportation, health care, education, communication and public safety.
Additionally, census data is vital to communities in making decisions on infrastructure needs and to current and potential business owners in assessing local needs and the strengths and risks of particular sectors and business plans.
Beginning around March 12, every household in the country will receive in the mail an invitation to respond online to the census. The Census Bureau works with the U.S. Postal Service to stagger the delivery of invitations over several days in hopes of spreading out responses online to improve website performance and on the phone to reduce wait times. Households in areas less likely to respond online will receive a paper questionnaire with the initial invitation.
Reminder letters will be sent beginning March 16, followed by reminder postcards after March 26. In April, households that have yet to respond will receive a reminder letter and paper questionnaire, followed by another reminder postcard. The final step for non-respondents will be an in-person follow-up beginning in May.
Information requested in the census questions include:
*An accurate count of the number of people at each address on Census Day (April 1, 2020).
*Whether the home is owned or rented.

*Phone number, solely for the use of a Census Bureau follow-up.
*The name, sex, age, date of birth and race of each individual.
*Whether a person is of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin.
*Whether a person lives or stays somewhere else.
*The relationship of each person in a household to one central person in the household.
The census will never ask for any Social Security numbers, bank or credit card numbers, money, donations or anything related to political parties.
Information provided to the U.S. Census Bureau is completely confidential and will not be released to anyone. Under federal law, census responses cannot be shared with any other government agencies and can never be used against you in any way. There are no exceptions.
The Census Bureau will not contact you by email and will only call on the phone if the bureau needs to verify the information you provided. If you receive an email about the census, please delete it and do not respond.

U.S. Census, 2020