April 1 was officially “Census Day” — the date that the U.S. Census Bureau targeted for all American households to complete their 2020 census forms.

Every household in America already should have received a letter from the Census Bureau in the mail, as well as a follow up reminder. The census can be completed online or by phone, or you can request a printed questionnaire to be sent to your home.

As of April 1, however, only about half of the households in Barrington had answered the census. The good news is that Barrington currently has the highest response rate in Rhode Island, significantly above the response rates for both the state (37 percent) and the nation as a whole (38 percent). The bad news is that low response rates mean that everyone is not counted. This can have a significant impact on the amount of federal aid available to Rhode Island over the next 10 years.

Getting widespread participation in the decennial census of population has historically been a challenging task for the Census Bureau, but this year’s exercise is proving to be all the more daunting due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Restrictions on travel and social interactions across the country in response to the virus have forced the Census Bureau to adjust its plans. For example, onsite assistance and field operations have been suspended, and the Bureau will not begin sending census workers door-to-door (to follow up on households that did not respond) until sometime in May at the earliest, in order to protect the health and safety of the public and census workers. 

Instead, the Census Bureau is strongly encouraging people to use the time while they are at home to complete the census questionnaire online at 2020Census.gov.

The process typically takes about 10 minutes, but officials remind residents that the results will affect the lives of Rhode Islanders for the next decade.

Funding

Accurate census information helps communities get the funding they need; Rhode Island received nearly $4 billion of federal funds in fiscal year 2016 alone based on census data.

These funds support local and statewide programs and services for health insurance, maternal and child health, hospitals, child care, food assistance, transportation, schools (including special education and classroom technology), libraries, and early childhood development.

In addition, local and state governments use census data to inform important decisions about funding, services, and infrastructure for local communities, including health care, senior centers, jobs, roads, and schools, as well as planning for public safety and emergency preparedness. And businesses use census data to decide where to locate offices, stores, restaurants, factories, or expand operations, all of which create jobs.

The final census count will be especially important this time as Rhode Island is among 10 states that may potentially lose one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. State census totals determine the apportionment of congressional seats, and by some estimates, as few as 7,000 residents may end up being the difference between Rhode Island retaining two congressional representatives or reducing the entire state into a single at-large district.

As of March 30, seven of those 10 states had higher response rates than Rhode Island. And four of the seven states that stand to potentially gain a representative as a result of an increase in population also had higher response rates than Rhode Island. This means that those states have a better chance of getting a full count of their population, and thus potentially retaining or adding to their congressional seats, possibly at Rhode Island’s expense.

The final response rate for Barrington households in the 2010 census was 85 percent.