Tuesday, census workers began the in-person follow-up process for households that have yet to respond to the questionnaires left on doors earlier this summer. Enumerators are under increased time pressure after the U.S. Census Bureau announced last week that the response deadline had been moved up a month to Sept. 30.

The census, mandated by the U.S. Constitution, is a population count of everyone living in the United States that is used to determine congressional representation, redistricting and how federal and state funds are distributed. It’s conducted once every 10 years.

This spring, the bureau extended the census response deadline from July to Oct. 31 due to COVID-19 complications. However, earlier this month, bureau director Steven Dillingham issued a statement that the timeframe had been shortened, citing the desire to allow time to compile data before the bureau’s Dec. 31 statutory deadline.

The announcement caused concern nationwide that an earlier deadline would lead to an undercount, especially in poor and rural communities.

The bureau is attempting to bulk up its operations to ensure the response rate is comparable to that of past census years.

“I don’t have an exact number of enumerators in Haines, but we are still hiring in order to accelerate the completion of data collection by our deadline,” census spokesperson Jeanette Duran Pacheco said. In addition to hiring more staff, the bureau has started an award system to recognize the hardest working enumerators.

For areas with a response rate below 50%, the bureau has begun emailing reminders to individual households, Duran Pacheco said.

At 31%, Haines’ self-response rate remains well below the 63% nationwide response rate, as well as Haines’ 45% self-response rate in 2010.

Duran Pacheco said despite the community’s low self-response rate, the bureau is “committed to a complete and accurate 2020 census,” and the stakes are high.

“Getting a complete and accurate census count is critically important,” Duran Pacheco said. “Each person counted in your community means additional federal dollars that end up there. On the other hand, each person who doesn’t participate in the census costs your community thousands of dollars each year, for the next ten years.”

In Haines, an undercount of just 1% of the population would result in a loss of $744,000 over 10 years, according to Census Bureau statistics. And this year’s census is particularly critical because the result could determine distribution of future federal COVID-19 recovery funds.

By now, households should have received hardcopies of census response forms with instructions for responding. This year, for the first time, individuals have the option of responding online, in addition to via mail or phone.