BERLIN – The self-response deadline for the 2020 Census has been pushed back to Oct. 5, giving people an additional five days to complete the survey.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilber Ross – whose department oversees the U.S. Census Bureau – announced a new target date of Oct. 5 to conclude 2020 Census self-response and field data collection operations.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Census Bureau earlier this year extended the self-response deadline to Oct. 31. In August, however, the deadline was moved up to Sept. 30.
This week’s announcement now sets a date of Oct. 5 for people to complete the questionnaire and enumerators to visit houses that have not completed the survey.
“Census takes will continue to follow up in-person with homes across the country through October 5 in an effort to reach everyone,” a statement from the bureau reads.
As of Sept. 28, Worcester’s self-response rate has reached 33.2%, hitting the 2010 self-response rate target.
Kelly Henry, coordinator of Worcester County’s Complete Count Committee, said statistics from the 2020 Census determine the distribution of billions of dollars in federal funding for the next decade.
“Statistics gathered determine distribution of [dollars] for education, transportation, health care, and other community services,” she said. “Everyone counts. The 2020 Census paints the portrait of Worcester County that will last 10 years, so let’s get everyone in the picture.”
Maryland’s self-response rate reached 70.7% this week, the Census Bureau reports, with Worcester County having the lowest self-response rate of all 23 counties.
But Henry explained it is difficult to compare Worcester’s self-response rate, as more than 60% of housing units are secondary homes and only 27% of the total homes are owner occupied. Census tracts in Ocean City, for example, are reporting self-response rates as high as 12.6% and as low as 6.5%.
“Being a vacation destination/resort community, 63% of the total number of housing units in Worcester County are vacation/secondary homes,” she said last month. “Garrett County is the closest, but their vacation/secondary homes total are less than 40%.”
However, some tracts in other parts of the county have exceeded 2010 self-response rates. In one area of Ocean Pines, for example, the response rate reached 64%, and in one Berlin Census tract response rates exceeded 68%.
The survey can be completed online, by phone or by mail. For more information, visit 2020census.gov.
