By Andy East
Local officials are making a final push to get as many people as possible to take the 2020 U.S. Census, as response rates are still lagging in some of Bartholomew County’s more economically unstable areas with just 10 days left before the deadline.
The U.S. Census is taken every 10 years to determine representation in Congress. It also determined how some $675 billion in federal money is allocated to states and local communities for education, Medicaid, food assistance, roads, playgrounds, after-school programs, low-income housing, among many other initiatives, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Indiana receives around $18 billion in federal funding each year based on population data from the U.S. Census Bureau — roughly $2,710 per person.
The deadline to respond is Sept. 30.
As of this past week, nearly half of the county’s census tracts were reporting a drop in their self-response rates compared to 2010, although the overall response rate within the county was slightly higher than 10 years ago.
The largest decrease so far has been in Lincoln-Central Neighborhood area, where 58.5% of households had responded to the census online, by phone or by mail as of Sept. 15, compared to 62.5% in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
By comparison, just over 87.7% of households in the area in the Parkside area around Rocky Ford Road and River Road had responded as of Thursday.
Overall, 72.4% of Bartholomew County households had responded to the U.S. Census — 22nd highest out of Indiana’s 92 counties, up from 70.5% in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A total of 74.2% of households in Columbus had responded over as of Thursday, up from 71.5% in 2010.
For more on this story, see Monday’s Republic
