LOCAL COMMUNITY NEWS

CENSUS 2000 TO BEGIN MARCH 3rd 2000

Within a few days thousands of Census Enumerators will be knocking on doors, and saying: Hello, I’m (John Jones) from the U.S. Census Bureau. Here is my identification.

They will be a cadre of Census workers who will be combing every nook and cranny to locate, identify and record (supposedly) every man, woman and child in the United States and its territories.

The Constitution of the United States requires that a census be taken every ten years. The first census was taken in 1790. This year 2000 will be the twenty second U. S. Census.

So why does the United States take a Census? It is used to determine how many members each state sends to the House of Representatives. The information gathered is also used as a basis in the distribution of monies for certain governmental funded programs, such as schools, highways etc.

Business uses it to determine future demands for goods and services and to determine sites for new development.

The U. S. Census Bureau, is a part of the U. S. Department of Commerce. The Census Bureau gathers information using printed forms called Census Questionnaires. This year they have both the short and long forms. For those who are interested in what the questions will be on the forms there are sample forms at: http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/2000quest.htm

I took a look at the questions this morning and if you have a computer with Internet connections you might find it interesting to just run through them. They have both the short and long sample forms.

This is my third time helping with the census. I worked in the 1980 and 1990 census and have now finished my training for the 2000 census.

In the cities most residents will receive their questionnaires in the mail while in rural America, most questionnaires will be hand delivered to a persons residence. We, as census enumerators will be only delivering the census questionnaire to you. You will fill out and return it at your convenience, on or before April 1st. We are not allowed to help you fill it out. If you do have trouble filling it out there is an 800 number to call for help.

It is estimated that the short form should take about ten or fifteen minutes to fill out and the long form perhaps twice that time. (I think it will take a bit longer) Once finished you place the form in a self addressed government mailing envelope, postage paid and put it in the mail. That is all there is to it. If you are not at home when one of us calls, we will leave the questionnaire in a plastic bag hanging on your door or some other obvious location.

So this next month, if you see some strange car parked in front of your fire number and the driver seems to be fumbling with all kinds of maps, that is probably one of us confused census takers trying to figure how to get to our next Assigned Area. But if you are a bit concerned we do carry a display card in the car identifying that we are on Official Business with the Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

So perhaps some time this month I may walk up to your front door and say: “Hi! My name is Bill Weber from the United States Census Bureau. Here is my identification. We are updating our list of mailing addresses and delivering questionnaires in this area for Census 2000 “ Go to www.census.gov for more information:
http://www.census.gov/