ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - If you haven't responded to the U.S. Census yet, you have just over two weeks to do so before census takers begin showing up at your door. August 11 is when the Census Bureau will move into phase two, the door-to-door phase of counting residents, and from the response so far, it looks like they'll be busy.
The lack of outreach, caused by limits on in-person gatherings due to the coronavirus, are one reason Rankin says the numbers in some areas are so low. "A lot of the in-person engagement activities where trusted organizations and communities would have really explained the value and significance of the census, and encouraged participation, all of that really had to be suspended between March and now because of COVID-19."
And it's programs that help those communities, Rankin says, that are adversely affected by the lack of response. "Hospitals and healthcare centers get the funding they need based on census data. So, if we're not capturing and counting everyone we're losing out on that funding."
She says in 2010, for each person not counted, Missouri lost about $1,300 per person, every year of the decade.