What you need to know about the 2020 census

No joke: It may be called Census Day, but April 1 isn’t actually the day the Census Bureau will start mailing out its 2020 census forms. That would be March 12.

Nor is it the day your census form is “due” (sorry, Jon Stewart). The final reminder postcard is set to go out in late April 2020, with in-person follow-up interviews to be conducted through July.

So what is April 1, 2020? Here’s the answer, along with a few other other things you might want to know about our once-in-a-decade population count in 2020.

What is the Census, and why does it happen every ten years?

Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates an “actual enumeration” of the U.S. population every ten years.

The goal of the decennial census is to achieve a complete population count of every living person in the country.

Many other countries also carry out a decennial population census, and it is the same periodicity recommended by the International Monetary Fund’s General Data Dissemination System.

Why is April 1 Census Day?

April 1 provides the official reference day for the decennial census, meaning that households are asked to answer the questions as of April 1. For example, on the 2010 Census form, the first question asked, “How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?”

Why use April Fools’ Day as the reference day and not, say, New Year’s Day? The decision was made in 1930, prompted by difficulties 1920 census-takers faced during the winter months.

This year, many households won’t be getting in-person visits or paper forms at all. Instead, they’ll receive a letter with instructions on how to fill out the questionnaire online — the first time they’ll be able to respond this way.

What are the questions I will have to answer — and will citizenship be one of them?

In March 2018, the Census Bureau released a list of the questions it plans to include in the 2020 census form. These include questions about age, sex, Hispanic origin and race and, included in a decennial census for the first time since 1950, the question “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”

Following multiple lawsuits challenging the addition of the citizenship question, including in Maryland, the Supreme Court is reviewing the case and expected to rule by the end of June, when the census forms are set to be printed.

Why does the Census Bureau think I should respond to these questions, and what does it think about the citizenship question?

In a nutshell, money and power. Information from the census determines how more than $675 billion dollars of federal funding are doled out, as well as how much political representation states and other localities get, from electoral college votes to congressional district seats.

For Maryland, “every person not counted equates to $1,821 in lost federal funding every year ($18,210 over ten years), until the next decennial census occurs in 2030,” according to a study by George Washington University.

In an interview with NPR prior to a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham said the bureau “must be totally objective” on the citizenship question issue.

What happens if I don’t fill out my Census form?

If you don’t fill out the Census form either online or by mail, and you don’t respond to the reminders, a Census enumerator will conduct an in-person “non-response follow-up” visit.

According to the Census Bureau’s map of hard-to-reach areas, some census tracts in Baltimore are predicted to have over a third of their households not responding to census mailers.

The state department of planning has awarded more than $4 million in matching funds (meaning recipients are required to match the grant amount) to local governments and community organizations for census outreach.

More than $1 million will go to groups supporting outreach in Baltimore, including $250,000 to the city’s department of planning.