U.S. Census workers started hand-delivering forms earlier this week to remote spots in the Cascade foothills and on the islands that surround Snohomish County.
The process may take weeks, as census workers visit homes that don’t get mail delivered to their door.
People aren’t counted during this phase of the census, the $14.7 billion effort by the government to tally every resident.
Instead, workers are verifying street addresses and dropping off forms. Residents will be expected to fill out the forms and mail them back. Thousands of forms need to be hand-delivered for a simple reason.
“People don’t live at a P.O. box,” said Leland Dart, who manages the Everett office of the U.S. Census Bureau. “We count people where they live. It’s almost a silly answer, but it’s the truth.”
In Snohomish County, workers will visit homes in and around Index, Darrington and Granite Falls. The operation will also take workers into the San Juan Islands and to rural areas of Skagit, Whatcom and Island counties.
The operation is taking place shortly before census forms are sent to actual mailboxes around March 15. Residents need to fill out the forms and mail them back by April 1 — National Census Day.
Census workers will begin in late April visiting homes to physically count those that didn’t mail their forms.
The Constitution requires the census every decade. Personal information on the forms is kept confidential and won’t be used for law enforcement reasons.
Instead, the statistics help determine the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives for each state. The past decade of population growth could earn Washington state an additional congressional district, Dart said.
The number of people also determines the amount of federal aid sent annually to the state. Each person represents about $1,400 in aid to be given each year in the coming decade, Dart said.
“The census is really only about two things — representation and money — when it’s all boiled down,” he said.
Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455, arathbun@heraldnet.com.
Still hiring
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Everett office is hiring census workers for its region, which includes Snohomish, Island and Skagit counties. The position pays $17.50 an hour plus mileage and training costs.
More info: Call 866-861-2010.
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