Graham Countians may be about to shoot themselves in the foot.
The 2020 U.S. Census is coming to conclusion. In fact, the White House wants to shorten the door knocking by one month. We would not need door knockers if people responded by mail or electronically. It is pretty easy and takes about ten minutes.
But we Graham Countians aren’t going to be fooled into giving up all those secrets about how many people are in our homes, or what kind of plumbing we have. Don’t ask us how much money we make. That’s our own business, until we need welfare or unemployment insurance.
Our performance in responding to the Census is dismal. The current percent response nationwide is 62.8 percent. The North Carolina percent response is 59 percent. Graham County’s stellar performance is 30.3 percent.
Our electronic response is barely measurable, which is easily explained by our horrendous Internet service. If these low response rates continue, estimates will be used to finish the Census and then the lawsuits claiming inaccuracy will begin.
On the subject of privacy, Title 13, U.S. Code Section 9 does not permit release of private data. The data is protected under the 2015 Cybersecurity Act. The Census itself is established in Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution which has required the count every 10 years since 1790. Individual data is not released for 70 years. So, your individual response will not be released until 2090.
Most of us will be well-planted by then.
If you can park the privacy conspiracy theory for a while, the real reason you need to complete the Census is your wallet. There are 132 Federal programs that rely on Census data to allocate money. Billions of dollars are allocated on Census data. Just a few of these programs include Medicare, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare), school lunches and breakfasts, Rural Development Grants, Head Start, Rural Water and Sewer Assistance, Section 8 housing assistance and grants for abstinence training programs.
Hey everyone, Graham County desperately needs these federal dollars. The lower the population count, the less we get. If you receive assistance from any of these programs, get the form filled out as fast as you can. The door knocking will end on Sept. 30.
There is one more big reason why the Census is important: politics. The Census determines how many Congressional seats we get. There aren’t any new seats being created, thank goodness. One state’s gain in population is another’s loss.
The Electoral College votes available are determined by the Census. If you don’t think that is important, then you must have slept through the 2016 election.
We should acknowledge that it is difficult to complete the census during the COVID-19 pandemic. Let us hope that this census will not go down as the worst count in our nation’s history.
Let us overcome fear of the risks to our personal data and make sure the Graham County statistics are accurate.
Roger Carlton is a columnist for The Graham Star. He is a council member for the Town of Lake Santeetlah.