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What everybody needs to know (PDF Format)
What Businesses need to know (PDF Format)
What Community and Social Service Organizations need to know (PDF Format)
What Educators need to know (PDF Format)
What you need to know about Census in Schools (PDF Format)
What Elected Officials need to know (PDF Format)
What Faith Based Organizations need to know (PDF Format)
What the Media needs to know (PDF Format)
What Tribal Leaders need to know (PDF Format)
I was sent an email warning me not to provide any information to census takers other than the number of people living in my home. Is that the only question I need to answer on the census? No. Each of the 10 questions on the census form are mandatory and required by law, so please answer all of them. To learn more about the questions on the form and why they are asked, click here: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/. If you don’t mail back your completed form in a timely manner, a census taker will come to your door to record your answers to the questions on the form. All census takers carry a badge with a Department of Commerce watermark and expiration date. Some census workers might carry a U.S. Census Bureau bag as well. The census taker will provide you with supervisor contact information and/or the Local Census Office phone number for verification, if asked. Please also be aware that the e-mail you received about the 2010 Census, which falsely claimed to be from the Better Business Bureau, is inaccurate and the Census Bureau, in partnership with the BBB, is advising the public to get the facts.
Why isn’t there a checkbox for my ethnic group on the form? The 2010 Census isn’t designed to capture data on a person’s ancestry. We capture that information on the American Community Survey (ACS), which is part of the official census but conducted throughout the decade on a rolling sample of about 2.5 percent of the population every year. In Census 2000 and earlier decades what is now the ACS was commonly called “the long form” of the census; the 2010 Census is the first to use a short form only. ACS data on ethnic groups can be found on the Census Bureau Web site. The race and Hispanic origin questions on the 2010 Census are required to manage federal programs. The questions follow the categories required by the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for federal statistics. Responses in the write-in spaces on the race question are converted to the appropriate checkboxes during data processing.
Why is the Census Bureau spending money on advertising during these tough economic times? Our experience in Census 2000 proved that paid advertising is a wise investment that reduces the overall cost of the census. For every one percent increase in mail response in 2010, the census will save $85 million that would otherwise have to be spent on door-to-door follow-up with households that didn’t respond. Census 2000 was the first census to use paid advertising rather than rely solely on donated public service announcements. It helped reverse a three-decade-long decline in mail response rates.
For the answers to more frequently asked questions visits:
http://2010.census.gov/2010census/about/whole.php
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