Take the Census or the Devil Will Get You
What is the census and how will it impact Alabama?
When I heard Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey spent $1 million on a task force designed to maximize census participation, I was skeptical.
The last time the census came around, I was a 10th grader and vaguely remember my mom filling out a paper copy. Ten years later, all I know is that it’s a once-a-decade population count. What’s so important about that?
So I asked someone to explain it to me, someone who I knew fought for the underprivileged in her community.
Why Should You Care About The Census?
“Census data can make or break the amount of resources a community has,” Courtney Campbell said.
Courtney, an activist and social worker from Jefferson County, said a lack of resources is the reason she now lives in Atlanta, Georgia instead of Birmingham, Alabama.
The largest census impact areas are education, healthcare, business and jobs.
“On a base level, it is the best way to determine the true demographics of the United States. On a macro level, the census determines funding for state, county, and local community funding for things like libraries, roads or buildings, police departments, fire departments, et cetera. This could be funding based on race, sex, population size, or income,” she said.
According to Alabama leaders, the state is at risk of losing billions along with its 7th congressional seat this census year. (Congressional seats equal electoral college votes and political power in Washington.)
“As a social worker, more resources for me is actually more resources for my clients. Greater resources for us, and more funding for us, means more jobs,” Courtney said. “So a lot of times when they cut a lot of these programs, it’s cutting jobs.”
The census helps fund school lunch, housing, Medicaid/Medicare, Title 1, disability, and other assistance programs including pell grants.
Courtney said the census is about “representation and voice” for both the individual and the community. If a certain population is undercounted, they are underrepresented.
In Alabama, minorities make up 35.2 percent of the population. The 2010 census was estimated to have undercounted 2.1% of African-Americans and 1.5% of Hispanic Americans nationwide, according to the census bureau, with indigenous populations at almost 5%. Across the county, renters and children under 5 are especially hard-to-count.
“While the overall coverage of the census was exemplary, the traditional hard-to-count groups, like renters, were counted less well,” Census Bureau director Robert Groves said. “Because ethnic and racial minorities disproportionately live in hard-to-count circumstances, they too were undercounted relative to the majority population.”
Remember late last year when the Trump administration attempted to add citizenship status to the census? Well, the reason it matters is because it’s important for the census to count everyone, foreign workers to non-citizens.
“With minority populations already underrepresented,” Courtney said. “It’s important that everyone is represented through the census. For representation and resources. Without census reporting, I can’t fight for resource allocation and funding for my clients.”
Why Is Alabama at Risk?
72 percent of Alabama households took the census in 2010 — two percent less than the national average — but Alabama isn’t growing as fast as its neighbors like Georgia, which grew by about 1 million people. In fact, it’s been a slough.
“What is at stake is $13 billion to the state of Alabama,” ADECA Director Kenneth Boswell said. “To give you some examples of that, almost $3.9 Billion in Medicaid in 2016, $230 million in Title 1 education funds, and $797 million for highway planning and construction.”
Census participation will need to be at least 80% to sustain funding, record unemployment, job growth, and our 7th congressional seat.
“If you don’t have someone at the table advocating for you, you’re going to be left out, there is no doubt,” Boswell said. “So the more congressional seats we can keep, the better it is for the state.”
Gov. Ivey described 2020 as a “make or break year for our state” during the Feb. 4 State of the State address. Can Alabama count on you to breakeven?
How To Take The Census:
Take your census online, by mail or over the phone. It’s just 10 questions. You can learn more about the census here: census.alabama.gov.
