KIRKSVILLE, MO. -- Planning for the 2010 census is well underway, and census workers are spreading the word on how easy and important it is for you to fill out the short questionnaire.
Every 10 years, the government tries to get as accurate a count as possible of the number of people living in the United States.
Census officials say the questionnaires that will be mailed to every household in the country next March have only 10 questions and should take 10 minutes or less to fill out.
"Mainly it's a person's name, their age, their race, their sex, ethnic origin. Really simple. There's no bank accounts, there's no social security numbers or anything like that. It's a very simple questionnaire, and once again, we're just trying to get the population count," said Rich Gerdes, Assistant Regional Census Manager.
Gerdes said the census figures are used to determine things like legislative districts and how many dollars worth of federal funds will be allocated to your community.
Only those who don't fill out their questionnaire and mail it in will be paid a visit by a census worker.
Local Census Offices are opening this fall. There are nine such offices in Missouri, five in Iowa.
The Census Bureau has 130 million questionnaires printed and ready to mail. They will be mailed March 15-17, 2010.
For those who don’t fill out the form and mail it in, Census Bureau workers will be paying a visit to their homes between May 1 and July 10, 2010.
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