Information about the US Census — specifically how you can participate — is coming to your mailbox next week.
On KVOE’s Morning Show recently, Kansas Counts Committee member Rob Gilligan said all residents will receive a postcard with a unique code for participating online starting March 12. And he says there is a significant shift in how the federal government is approaching the census this year versus past years, when most of the information would be returned by mail or collected by door-to-door “enumerators.”
Mail-in information will be available later and Gilligan says there will be some door-to-door contact if their only contact information is a post office box and they haven’t responded to prior census mailings by May or June.
The US Constitution mandates residents take part in the census. The resulting data is then used to portion out hundreds of billions of federal dollars to cities, counties and states, including over $60 billion just for Kansas for programs like health care, education, transportation and infrastructure. With that in mind, Gilligan says it’s highly important that everybody take part.
The census is officially between April 1 and July 1. More information is available at www.census.gov and www.kansascounts.org.
