The year was 1790, and George Washington had barely been sworn in as president Congress authorized complying with Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which required the federal government to conduct a census of the country, and continue to do so every ten years. On August 2, 1790, the country had its first Census Day, with the count coming in around 3.9 million people, not counting Native Americans and slaves counted as three-fifths of a person. (Check out Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the original US Constitution for that piece of gerrymandering of the American populace).

This will be the 24th time the United States will undertake to count its inhabitants, and the stakes have never been higher. The 2020 population numbers will shape how political power and federal tax dollars are shared in the U.S over the next 10 years. The number of congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets are determined by census numbers. They also guide how an estimated $880 billion a year in federal funding is distributed for schools, roads and other public services in local communities. The demographic data is used for a host of purposes, for example developers use it to determine where to build new supermarkets and by emergency responders to locate injured people after natural disasters.

Michael Burger, 20202 Census Partnership Specialist for several counties in our region, spoke at the County Commissioners Meeting on July 18th relating this information, and to begin to gather support for this upcoming event. It will begin in February of next year with an institutional count, held at Penn College and Lycoming College. This will then be followed by a postcard sent to all residents that the census is coming. The bulk mailing will be sometime around the second or third week in March. This will contain directions on how to respond to the census. For the first time, there will also be a telephone and internet option as well as mailing back the census that comes in the mail. April 1st (no kidding) is the official Census Day.

Why should every person in Lycoming County be very, very concerned about this census? Consider how much money is impacted by census numbers — $880 BILLION A YEAR! The importance of insuring an accurate count cannot be overemphasized. For every person that is missed, it would cost the county $2000 per person in missed federal revenue. The last census in Bradford County missed 4000 people and they had to carry that loss for ten years.

In past censuses, Lycoming County has had a high rate of non-response on mailbacks, 23.9%, compared to neighboring counties that average about 14%. For all those non-responders, census-workers will have to go knock on the door and personally get the information. So help your county — answer the questions, get that form filled out, and send it in. A lot depends on it.

[Note: Those interested in serving as a part-time census taker in 2020 should go to the Census website: www.2020census.gov.]