A postal milestone is coming to your mailbox, starting this week, and your response will be worth millions of dollars to local governments across Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia.
On Monday, the U.S. Postal Service began delivering 123 million letters nationwide, alerting Americans that a census questionnaire is heading for each household next week. At stake is not only the official population count for each state, county and city but how nearly $450 billion in annual federal funds is distributed, according to a Brookings Institution study released today.
In the Chattanooga area, the Brookings study found that Uncle Sam distributed $1,480 in federal funds for each resident in 2008. So the results of the census count -- taken every 10 years -- are worth more than $12 billion each for Tennessee and Georgia.
"There is a lot of money at stake in the census count, so it's vital for each community to get the best count possible," said Andrew Reamer, a Brookings Institution fellow and author of the study "Counting for Dollars."
PDF: Census Counting for Dollars studyPDF: Justice department letterCENSUS COUNTDOWN* March 8 -- The U.S. Census Bureau began mailing advance letters to about 120 million addresses nationwide, alerting Americans that the 2010 census forms will be arriving next week.* March 15-17 -- The 10-question census form will be delivered to every household.* March 22-24 -- Postcard reminder delivered about upcoming census form.* April 1 -- National Census Day, the date to be used as a point of reference for sending completed forms back in the mail* May-July -- Census takers go door to door to households that did not respond to the mailed census form.* December 2010 -- By law, the Census Bureau delivers population information to the White House.* March 2011-- Census Bureau completes delivery of redistricting data to states.Source: U.S. Bureau of Census
The census form to be mailed next week is a 10-question survey asking how many people live in each household, whether the home is a house, apartment or mobile home and the phone number, names and race of each inhabitant.
Each household is getting a letter this week, but the actual census survey comes next week along with another postcard reminder near the end of March to fill out the survey. Collectively, the 447 million pieces of mail the Postal Service is delivering as part of the 2010 census count is the biggest mass mailing of its type in U.S. history, according to Beth Barnett, a communications specialist with the Postal Service in Nashville.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that, for every 1 percent increase in households that respond to the census survey by mail, taxpayers save about $85 million. Households that don't respond to the mailed surveys will be visited in May, June or July by census takers going door to door to follow up with those that did not mail back the form.
constitutional count
The U.S. census has been done under a constitutional mandate every 10 years since 1790. The population count is used not only to allocate representation for the U.S. Congress and state legislatures but to help distribute money under 215 federal domestic assistance programs.
The biggest amount of federal dollars tied to population and poverty involve Medicaid, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Educational Title I programs for disadvantaged children, Mr. Reamer said.
Because Tennessee's TennCare program covers a bigger share of the population than PeachCare in Georgia and Medicaid in Alabama, Tennessee tends to get more federal dollars per capita under census-related funding programs, according to the Brookings Institution study.
Census officials stress that, even though respondents will be asked about their identity, results of the surveys cannot be used by any other government agency under penalty of law.
The Rev. Bernie Miller, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship Church and chairman of the U.S. Census Bureau's African-American Advisory Committee, stressed that the responses cannot be used to identify illegal immigrants or to deny any individual rights.
"There have been some concerns if the Patriot Act or other laws might allow census data to be used for other purposes," he said. "It will not, cannot ever trump the confidentiality of the census data."
Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield said Monday that he is eager for every Chattanoogan to respond accurately to the census survey questions.
"It's very important that the actual count reflect what we believe is happening in this community or we will have to go back through the process of trying to appeal the count again and doing all those things we did to get the results changed before," he said.
The city successfully appealed a 2006 census estimate and convinced the federal agency to add another 13,103 residents to its estimated population count for Chattanooga.
According to the Brookings Institution, that revision helped bring another $19.3 million to city residents and their governments.