In case you haven’t gotten around to mailing your Census form back yet, the U.S. Census Bureau has begun mailing second forms to approximately 40 million housing units in areas that had below-average response rates in the 2000 Census.
Locally, the return rates for St. Louis City and St. Louis County are below the last Census: 64 percent in 2000 compared to 58 percent thus far in St. Louis; and 82 percent in 2000 compared to 72 percent thus far in St. Louis County.
“Census Bureau and a multitude of private sector research shows that sending a replacement questionnaire to households can significantly increase response rates in the end,” Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said. “We estimate that the second mailing could increase America’s mail participation rate in the 2010 Census by 7 to 10 percentage points, and doing so would save taxpayers more than $500 million.”
Every percentage point increase in the national participation rate by mail saves about $85 million, according to the Census Bureau. It costs the government just 42 cents in a postage paid envelope to get a questionnaire back in the mail, but it costs taxpayers an average of $57 to count a household that fails to mail it back.
Second questionnaires were mailed last week to every housing unit in areas that had a mail response rate of 59 percent or less in 2000, or about 24.7 million households. The questionnaires were sent to all households, regardless of whether they had already returned their 2010 Census form.
In areas that had response rates between 59 and below the national average of 67 percent, replacement forms will be sent only to households that have not yet mailed back their completed 2010 Census form. These 15 million households will receive a second form April 6-10.
Households have until mid-April to mail back their forms before census takers begin going door to door to residences that failed to respond.
“The replacement form gives them a second chance to get counted and help ensure that their community gets its fair share of political representation and federal funds over the next 10 years,” Groves said.
Currently, the national mail participation rate is 62 percent, with some of the lowest rates in Alaska, California, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. The latest national and local participation rates can be viewed at http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map.