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Lt. Governor Urges Wisconsinites to Fill Out 2020 Census

U.S. Census Bureau

It takes a whole three minutes to fill out the 2020 census.

If you’ve also been putting it off, for whatever reason, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has a message for you.

“Don’t let this be another thing that you forget. It can be easy to brush this off and think that it’s not necessarily as important as it actually is,” said Barnes.  “However, this is something that happen every ten years. You’re not going to have an opportunity next year. You’re not going to have an opportunity in the next five years. It is only going to happen again in 2030. This is not just something you’re doing for yourself. This is something you’re doing for your entire community.”

Credit U.S. Census Bureau

The goal of the census is to count how many people are living in the united states.

Its impact is larger than that.

It determines how federal funding goes to hospitals, fire departments, schools, roads and other resources in your community.  It also determines the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Barnes says rural areas historically have been underrepresented in the census count.

“We know that there is economic stress in our rural areas just like there is in our urban areas. For us to be able to provide the sort of relief or fund the efforts to promote prosperity or bring the necessary programs and efforts like rural broadband we need to make sure we have an accurate count so we know how many people we’re talking about,” said Barnes.

You can fill out the census via mail, online, or by phone. To do it by phone, you can call 844-330-2020 or you can visit 2020census.gov to respond online.

Katie Thoresen is WXPR's News Director/Vice President.
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