Chattanooga-area residents are responding better than most other Tennesseans or Georgians to the 2010 census forms that arrived in the mail this month.
But as of Friday, nearly two-thirds of area households still hadn't filled out the 10-question form, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Census issued at the end of last week.
In Hamilton and Bradley counties in Southeast Tennessee and in Catoosa County in Northwest Georgia, 37 percent of the homes have mailed back their completed forms to the Census Bureau. But statewide, only 30 percent of all Tennesseans and 27 percent of all Georgians have mailed back their forms, records show.
Grundy County had the third-lowest response rate among Tennessee's 95 counties through the end of last week. Only 21 percent of Grundy County residents so far have mailed back their forms, ahead of only the 20 percent response rate in Perry and Pickett counties.
"These first weeks are critical to the final census count," census Director Robert Groves said last week. "It's absolutely vital that everyone takes the 10 minutes to fill out and mail back their forms."
For every 1 percent of all U.S. households that don't respond to the mailed forms, the Census Bureau estimates it will have to spend $85 million to send census takers door to door to collect in-person responses starting in May.
On Monday, census takers will begin canvassing nursing homes, college dorms and other group homes, as well as begin the count of homeless people in each city, officials said.
The 2010 census count will determine how congressional, legislative and city council seats are allocated, perhaps as soon as 2012. The census count also will help determine the distribution of more than $400 billion a year in federal funds.
"We want to do what we can to make sure that everyone is counted," said David Pennington, mayor of Dalton, Ga.
Mr. Pennington acknowledged that Dalton's population may have dropped since the carpet industry hit the skids nearly three years ago and pushed Dalton's jobless rate above 13 percent. But the mayor also is convinced that the last official government population count in 2000 missed thousands of Whitfield County residents, especially many Hispanic workers drawn to Dalton in the 1990s by jobs in the carpet industry.
Statewide, Georgia's projected population growth of more than 20 percent in the past decade is more than double the U.S. average and should get the Peach State at least one more seat in Congress.
Tennessee's population also has grown faster than the national average since 2000 but probably not enough to add another congressional seat.
But University of Georgia demographer Dr. Doug Bachtel cautions that getting an accurate census count in today's diverse and mobile society is a challenge.
"Even in 1790, when the first census was done in the United States, it was pretty hard to do," he said. "It's increasingly difficult with more than 300 million people in the United States living in all manner of homes, apartments, dorms, motel rooms, cars and ships at sea."
Despite the political and economic power gained for local governments and businesses from a bigger count, some people don't want to be counted, Dr. Bachtel said.
"There is a lot of fear about government information among some people," Dr. Bachtel said. "But those fears are really unfounded. We could probably find out how to build a nuclear bomb easier than it would be to get someone's address from the Census Bureau."
Title 13 of the U.S. Code prohibits sharing personal census data with anyone, including other federal agencies and law enforcement entities. Census employees are sworn to secrecy for life and face a fine of up to five years imprisonment for violating the oath. Federal law also requires census participation.
Return rate for 2010 census:
* Hamilton County: 37 percent
* Bradley County: 37 percent
* Catoosa County: 37 percent
* McMinn County: 36 percent
* Bledsoe County: 36 percent
* Marion County: 35 percent
* Walker County: 35 percent
* Rhea County: 33 percent
* Sequatchie County: 33 percent
* Murray County: 33 percent
* Chattooga County: 33 percent
* Polk County: 32 percent
* Whitfield County: 31 percent
* Meigs County: 31 percent
* Dade County: 30 percent
* Grundy County: 21 percent
Source: U.S. Bureau of Census. Rates reflect returned census forms received by the Census Bureau as of March 26, 2010
On the Web
* Find out participation levels in your neighborhood at http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map/
* To encourage and monitor the response rate to the 120 million household surveys mailed in mid-March, the Census Bureau worked with Google this year on an interactive mapping tool that shows how well each community is responding to the mailed surveys on a day-by-day basis. The data is updated after 4 p.m. each day at http://google-latlong.blogspot.com.