Hurdles Remain As The Final Countdown Begins For The 2020 Census
The last stretch before the start of the 2020 census is upon us.
The once-a-decade, national head count is scheduled to kick off next January. Census workers start in the village of Toksook Bay and other parts of rural Alaska when the ground there is frozen enough for door-to-door visits. Then, beginning in March 2020, the U.S. government's most expansive peacetime operation rolls out to households in the rest of the country.
The data collected will be used for a major reset in political power and federal funding through 2030. Each state's share of representatives in Congress, as well as votes in the Electoral College, will be determined for the next decade by the new population counts. Those counts are also used to distribute more than $880 billion a year in federal funds for Medicare, schools and other public services, according to the latest estimate by The George Washington Institute of Public Policy.
But before the government can carry out its constitutional mandate to count every person
