Households in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tallahassee and Tampa are lagging behind the rest of the country in mailing back their 2010 Census forms, the Census Bureau said today.
With Census Day on April 1, Miami, has one of the lowest participation rates at 32 percent, as of Monday, March 29th. Fort Lauderdale’s participation rate is only 33 percent; Tallahassee, 34 percent and Tampa 35 percent, to date. Nationally, 46 percent of households have mailed back their forms.
“We’re concerned about the relatively low response from parts of Florida,” said Census Bureau Director Robert Groves. “Every household that fails to send back their census form by mail must be visited by a census taker starting in May – at a significant taxpayer cost. The easiest and best way to be counted in the census is to fill out and return your form by mail.”
The emphasis on encouraging mail participation in the census is a practical one.
For every percentage point increase in mail response, taxpayers will save an estimated $85 million in federal funds. Those funds would otherwise be required to send census takers to collect census responses in person from households that don’t mail back the form. After the 2000 Census, the Census Bureau was able to return $305 million in savings to the federal Treasury because mail rates exceeded expectations — a move the Census Bureau would like to repeat in 2010.
“The 2010 Census is easy, important and safe,” Groves said. “It’s only 10 questions and should only take about 10 minutes to complete.”
