BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – Officials in Western New York continue to stress the importance of filling out the census before the end of the month.
Only 52.7 percent of Buffalo residents have filled out the census so far. In 2010, 57.6 percent of people in Buffalo filled out the census.
“Buffalo’s census questionnaire completion rate is still far too low,” Mayor Byron Brown said. “That could pose a serious problem for the city over the next several decade.”
New York is expected to lose a congressional seat as the population decreases. Brown said the loss in funding could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid.
Approximately 1,300 people were hired to go door-to-door to help increase the response rate. The US Census Bureau estimated they reached about 70 percent of the population that did not respond to the census.
“While we would have expected to see the bump, we won’t see it until the census bureau is done with their calculations,” Jessica Lazarin, Chair of the Buffalo Complete Count Committee, said. “They’re not going to report in the self-response rate all of the responses they are getting.”