Posted on Sun, Mar. 14, 2010
BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI
aviglucci@MiamiHerald.com
In a multimedia-saturated age, Census officials and boosters call the publicity campaign vital to the decennial headcount's success.
The goal is to reverse a long-standing decline in mail-back rates for the forms, in particular from what Census official call hard-to-count groups: blacks, Hispanics, immigrants and the poor.
Census boosters say capturing as accurate a count as possible is, primarily, a question of fairness. It ensures political representation for all communities as well as an equitable distribution of Census-based federal services -- nearly $500 billion annually for health care for the poor, highway construction, schools and housing assistance, among other programs.
But sending Census enumerators knocking on the doors of those who don't return their forms costs taxpayers big money, too. Every 1 percent increase in the mail-return rate, which was about seven in 10 in 2000, saves the Census Bureau around $85 million, officials say.
Posted By: Ayanna Spikeshttp://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/14/v-print/1529725/mail-you-can-count-on.html
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