The Chamber was on hand last week for “The Road to 2020” Census Bureau Training, hosted by the Alamo Area Council of Governments (AACOG). The census in 2020 will require counting an increasingly diverse and growing population of approximately 330 million people in our city. Mayor Ivy Taylor provided opening remarks to attendees who learned more about the upcoming census, including timeline, geographical programs, critical state and local government involvement, and jobs. The information from the census, which occurs every 10 years, shapes the number of representatives our state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2010, due to the growth in the Texas population, our state received four additional representatives. In addition, census information is used to distribute billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities.
Changes are coming to the 2020 U.S. Census in the hopes that more people will respond to the survey. To increase the number of respondents, the United States Census Bureau plans to reengineer the process by reducing their reliance on paper questionnaires and by using the internet to improve their data collection from non-responding households. Their goal is to make it easier to respond at any time and from any location.
