Did you take the time to answer your Census? About 72-percent of Americans, including Phoenix home owners, completed and returned their forms. Now Census takers will go door-to-door across the nation to follow up with households that either didn’t mail back their form or didn’t receive one. An estimated 48 million addresses will be visited through July 10.
If you get a knock on your door from a Census worker, here are some ways to verify that person is a legitimate census taker:
The census taker must present an ID badge that contains a Department of Commerce watermark and expiration date. The census taker may also be carrying a black canvass bag with a Census Bureau logo.
The census taker will provide you with supervisor contact information and/or the local census office phone number for verification, if asked.
The census taker will only ask you the questions that appear on the 2010 Census form.
The 2010 Census taker will not ask for social security number, bank account number or credit card number and will never solicit for donations or contact you by e-mail.
In most cases, census workers will make up to six attempts at each housing unit address to count possible residents. This includes leaving notifications of the attempted visit at the house or apartment door, in addition to trying to reach the household by phone to conduct the interview or schedule an in-person interview.
Some households will receive a visit even though they may have mailed back their form. If the form arrived too late to be processed before non response follow-up packets were sent to one of the 494 local census offices, the household occupants must still be interviewed when the census taker arrives. The Census Bureau is urging cooperation and patience with the census takers, as this is the best way to ensure that everyone is counted properly.
ABOUT THE 2010 CENSUS
The 2010 Census is a count of everyone living in the United States and is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Census data are used to apportion Congressional seats to states, to distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds to tribal, state and local governments each year and to make decisions about what community services to provide. The 2010 Census questionnaire will be one of the shortest in U.S. history and consists of 10 questions, taking about 10 minutes to complete. Strict confidentiality laws protect the respondents and the information they provide.
More information, fact sheets and multimedia are available on the Census Bureau’s online news room. Go to www.2010census.gov.