(NBC) – It’s the beginning of a new decade and it’s time to take another headcount of just how many people live in the U.S.
That means you need to be on the lookout for contact with someone from the Census Bureau regardless of how tiny or remote your town may be.
Mainly because it’s easier to travel when the ground’s frozen, Alaska’s where the 2020 census has begun, and mainly because a bunch of minorities got left out in the last count. The once-a-decade census begins with a 90-year-old who only speaks in her native Alaskan language.
Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham went to Alaska himself to oversee the count kickoff and urge participation by the rest of the country beginning in mid-March.
“They can go online and answer the census or they can do it by phone or do it on paper and mail it in,” he says.
If those attempts fail, a census taker might actually show up at your front door.
As the TV ads say, states rely upon census data to determine how much money they get from D.C.
Decisions like how many congressional seats a state gets are based on the number of people who answer the census.
Regardless of your immigration status, the Census Bureau encourages everyone living in the United States to be counted.
