By WKMS News Team
Paducah, KY – U.S. Census workers are expected to knock on some 85-thousand doors in Kentucky's 22 westernmost counties. The door-to-door census campaign began May 1st. The McCracken County Complete Count Committee reports census workers will make up to six attempts at each address to count the possible residents. Workers will leave notifications of the attempted visit. They will also try to reach the household by phone to conduct the interview or schedule an in-person interview. Officials expect the door-to-door campaign to wrap up by the end of June.
Complete press-release:
Door-to-Door 2010 Census Campaign Underway
PADUCAH, KY The McCracken County Complete Count Committee wants the public to be aware of the door-to-door census campaign. The campaign began nationwide on May 1 with the goal of visiting an estimated 48 million addresses. For the western 22 Kentucky counties, census takers will visit approximately 85,000 addresses. The door-to-door campaign in Kentucky will last until mid to late June.
If a census worker knocks on your door, here are some ways to verify that the person is a legitimate census taker:
v The census taker must present an identification badge that contains a Department of Commerce watermark and expiration date. The census taker may be carrying a black canvass bag with a Census Bureau logo.
v The census taker will provide contact information for his/her supervisor and/or the local census office phone number for verification.
v The census taker will only ask the 10 questions that appear on the 2010 Census form.
v The census taker will not ask to come inside your home and will not ask for your social security number, bank account number, or credit card number. The census taker will not solicit for donations.
v The census taker either will be alone or with one other census worker.
In most cases, some households will receive a door-to-door visit even though they may have mailed back their form. If the form was lost in the mail or if the form arrived too late to be processed before non-response follow-up packets were sent to one of the 494 local census offices, the household must still be interviewed when the census taker arrives. Please be patient with the census takers, they are working to make sure everyone is counted. Also, many of the census takers are local residents, your neighbors.
For additional information, contact the Hopkinsville Census Office at 270-987-3030.
About the McCracken County Complete Count Committee: The McCracken County Complete Count Committee includes representatives of the following agencies: Housing Authority of Paducah, McCracken County Public Schools, Paducah Public Schools, McCracken County, City of Paducah, and the Census Bureau. The committee was created with the goal of bringing awareness about the importance of being counted during the 2010 Census.
About the Census: The U.S. Constitution requires a national census every 10 years to count the population. Every person living in the United States must be counted in the 2010 Census including people of all ages, races, ethnic groups, citizens and non-citizens. The census data is used to determine the number of seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives. Also, the allocation of more than $400 billion in federal funding is based on data collected during the census. By law, the Census Bureau cannot share respondents' answers with anyone, including other federal agencies and law enforcement entities.