Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tennessee Lags Nation With Census Returns
Middle Tennessee is lagging the rest of the country when it comes to returning census forms, the U.S. Census Bureau says.
The bureau started mailing out 120 million of the forms on March 15. So far, they've received forms back from just 5 percent of people in Davidson and Williamson counties. That compares to a 16 percent response rate nationwide.
The results of the 2010 Census will be used to determine how many seats Tennessee and other states receive in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as how $400 billion in federal funds are distributed each year.
During the last Census, 69 percent of Tennesseans mailed back their forms, compared to 72 percent nationwide.
We checked how some of the communities arer faring with Census returns.
The census bureau is trying to prod people to fill out and return the mailed forms so that they won't have to dispatch as many Census workers for door-to-door surveys.
Mail forms cost the government the price of postage; house-to-house canvassers cost about $57 per house, the bureau points out. Those who don't return the form can expect a knock on their door sometime after April 30.
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