Today is the Last Day to Respond to the 2020 Census

Be sure you respond today. | Photo courtesy of U.S. Census Bureau

California’s campaign is calling on all Californians to take the census today since the U.S. Census Bureau is stopping census operations Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Families still have one last chance to make a difference for their family and neighborhood by taking the census online, by phone or mail.

U.S. Census Bureau Operations:

• Internet self-response will be available across the nation through Oct. 15, 2020, visit my2020census.gov to respond.
• Phone response will be available for its regularly scheduled time on Oct. 15, 2020. Click here for schedule and a list of numbers.
• Paper responses must be postmarked by Oct. 15, 2020.
• Nonresponse follow-up census takers will continue resolving nonresponding addresses through the end of the day on Oct. 15, 2020.

An estimated 10.5 million households have self-responded to the census, with around 2.4 million of those being in the hardest-to-count areas. This is 1.2 million more households than 2010 and 1.9 million more than 2020.

Leaders said it was the decision to invest resources in reaching hard-to-count Californians that made the difference, noting that the state’s effort to reach people who are traditionally harder-to-count was a result of a comprehensive multilingual and multicultural campaign that has been underway since the beginning of the year.

“We implore Californians who have yet to take the census to fill it out today before midnight. This is our moment to be counted and make a difference for our family and community. If California households aren’t counted in this census, they will become invisible for the next 10 years,” said Ditas Katague, director of the California Complete Count – Census 2020.

As of Thursday, 69.4% of California households have responded to the 2020 census online, by phone or mail. In 2010, California’s self-response rate (SRR) was 68.2%. With today being the last day to take the census, it is critical for Californians who have yet to fill out the form to complete the confidential, nine-question survey now to help achieve a complete count.

Between late July and mid-October, the gap between California’s SRR and the national SRR almost doubled, from 1.3 percentage points to 2.6 percentage points. Traditionally, California has served as a leading indicator for the decennial census. California drives the national rate given the state has approximately 10% of all U.S. households. The national SRR is 66.8% (98.8 million households). The final national SRR in 2010 was 66.5%.

California is the hardest-to-count state in the nation, with a large, diverse population, and a high number of people considered traditionally hard-to-count, including recent immigrants, people who lack high-speed internet access, and people with limited English proficiency.

Since the census began in mid-March 2020, California’s census campaign has been focused on executing an integrated, hyper-targeted outreach and communication effort with the help of over 150 partners designed to reach California’s estimated 4 million households in the hardest-to-count areas.

The census is confidential and secure. Information is not shared with any other government agency. Most importantly- the census is a count of everyone living in the country today, regardless of their status. There is no citizenship question, and every single Californian has a right to be counted.

For more information about the U.S. Census Bureau’s NRFU operation, including how to identify an official census taker, please click here.