Money Matters, Simplified.
U.S. census forms start arriving in mailboxes
by Neha Gupta - March 15, 2010 - comments
Various advertising campaigns like the Super Bowl advertisement, costing the Bureau $133 million, have been designed to increase public awareness about the activity.
As per the once-a-decade population survey policy of the U.S government, more than 120 million census forms have been posted to the residents throughout the nation.
The census forms, that would help divide the congressional seats, have begun arriving since Monday morning.
The policy of mailing the forms helps the government save around $1.5 billion in case all the households return back their forms.
The government expects a higher count than the year 2000, when about 72 percent households had mailed back their filled in forms to the Census Bureau, wherein Midwest states like Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska had ranked at the top in mail participation.
However, the officials predict that the western states are most likely to lose the most on the survey count due to the low mail participation rates in these states, besides the large number of young residents.
"If the American public comes through in the way everyone is capable of, we'll have a great census," said Census Bureau director Robert Groves.
Next few weeks critical
The next few weeks are very critical for the Bureau, as though it has aimed at a higher participation than the year 2000, a thorough analysis suggests that around two-third households would revert back the forms.
The Bureau has further decided to send census officials to every household that does not mail back the forms from May to July.
Constraints in the activity
There are several constraints in the overall success of this policy, like illegal migration cases and the resident’s distrust in the government.
Since the year 2000, the state has witnessed a rapid growth in Hispanics or Blacks, who are reluctant to mail the forms.
Steps taken to enhance participation
Groves is particularly trying to motivate the young adults who were earlier sharing their apartments with their parents in the year 2000, but are now living on their own.
Various advertising campaigns like the Super Bowl advertisement, costing the Bureau $133 million, have been designed to increase public awareness about the activity.
For the first time the Bureau has mailed bilingual forms i.e. English-Spanish forms, whereas the forms are also available in 59 other languages on the site http://www.2010census.gov.
The officials have further decided to levy a fine of $5000 on the defaulters.
Moreover, this year’s forms are the shortest in the history of the U.S Census, in order to enhance the participation level.