Let’s face it: 2020 hasn’t been the greatest year to date. OK, maybe close to in all of modern history.
California has had more than its share of disasters this year: COVID, unemployment, drought, extreme heat, wildfires … everything but locusts, it seems.
But we are still here. And we need to be counted.
Why?
Because of representation. And money. If the federal government cannot get an accurate count of the California population—as in how many people there are and where they live in the state—we miss out. YOU miss out. Because that count determines how much state and federal funding your area gets; it also determines how well you are represented in government. It’s all related.
The Census is nothing new: The U.S. has counted its population every 10 years since 1790. It’s mandated by law.
The numbers collected by the Census every 10 years are used by local, state, and federal offices to decide everything from where to put new sewer systems and fire departments right down to things such as how many first-grade teachers should be hired in your school district.
We are talking hundreds of billions of dollars here.
The count determines how much of those hundreds of billions will flow into to more than 100 vital programs, including:
- Assistance to Seniors
- Crime Victim Assistance
- Federal Pell Grants
- Head Start
- Medicaid
- National School Lunch Program
- Rural Education
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
- Wildlife Restoration
The count also determines how many seats each state gets in Congress.
On August 11, Census takers started going into neighborhoods and knocking on doors at homes that have not responded yet.
You don’t have to wait for someone to come to your home. You can access the Census two other ways:
Call it in: (844) 330-2020 is the number to call to answer Census questions over the phone; assistance is available in multiple languages; other types of support are also available.
Go online: You can take the Census online at my2020census.gov or census.ca.gov.
There are 121 million households in the United States; 13 million of those are in California.
Ten minutes every 10 years. That’s 1 minute per year. Your time is worth it.
Let’s get out the count!
