The Census Bureau wants to change the way you're counted
You can help by leaving a public comment by November 2
While we're all thinking about who to vote for in November, there's another voting period we should be aware of. The Census Bureau published a proposal this fall that could change how many people count as "residents" and where they are counted.
People who travel or spend time at multiple residents, like travel nurses, family caretakers, college students, the incarcerated and the unhoused, may not be counted in their home areas, instead counted in temporary housing, or not at all. Those changes can impact public health initiatives, workforce development and how local money is distributed. The proposed change is titled “Decennial Census of the Population of Americans; Proposed Residence Criteria and Proposed Regulations for Demographic Questions" and you can read the entire docket here.
Other categories that will see changes are race and ethnicity, with docket authors citing that information as “immaterial personal characteristics," and the use of tax records as evidence of permanent residence. All of thee categories can impact how future money is spent in certain zip codes and neighborhoods by denying that certain demographics live in certain areas and diverting money elsewhere.
How You Can Help
A group called Hands Off Our Census, a nonpartisan collaboration of civil rights advocacy groups like the National Collaborative for Health Equity, the Environmental Protection Network and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, has created a template for you to use when you write personal public comments against the changes; the guide is in both English and Spanish. I learned about the group through my work teaching journalism and am not getting any pay to talk about their template.
Your comments go on live on Regulations.gov and are due by the end of the public comment period, November 2. The Bureau is required to read your comments, so the time you spend on this really counts.
