It’s all a numbers game. And the results of this year’s nation-wide census could prove vital for Rhode Islanders who risk losing a seat in the United State House of Representatives — and hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding for things such as education and Community Development Block Grants.
Delia Smidt, a partnership specialist for the Regional Census Bureau in Boston, said initial number projections show a decrease in the number of people living in the state, but she admits those projections may be misleading.
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”The projections are done by counting the number of births and deaths,” she said. “So that’s why the challenge is making sure that everyone gets counted.”
Mark Brown of the Rhode Island Statewide Planning Department, which does its own projections on a five-year interval, said though there was decrease in population from 1990 to 1995, the state has rebounded in the past five years, and his office is expecting an increase of close to 6,000 people.
”There was a decrease in this decade because of the lack of rebounding from a recession,” he said. “It’s similar to what was happening all around New England. But somewhere during the last five years more businesses have been pulled into the state.”
Brown said the most significant factor in the population reduction in the early part of the decade was the result of “outward migration,” a trend that has shifted dramatically in the other direction during the last five years.
”At that time college kids were graduating and looking elsewhere because they couldn’t find what they needed here,” he said. “Now we are seeing more migration into the state.”
In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Rhode Island is expected to gain 113,000 people through international migration between 1995 and 2025, placing it 24th among the 50 states.
Still counting all of the people who live in Rhode Island and across the country has become increasingly difficult and expensive for Census workers. Mandated by the U.S. Constitution, a census must be taken each year ending in zero.
Still, the percentage of people nationwide who mailed back their census forms declined from 78 percent in 1970 to 65 percent in 1990 and the percentage of people who were missed all together increased as well.
Smidt said the goal for Rhode Island is to get a 67 percent response to the mailings that went out last month, an increase of 5 percent over the 1990 census. As of March 28, 49 percent of the state’s forms had been returned, representing 5 percent more than the national average Advertising alone costs more than $165 million.
”This is the largest peace-time effort in the history of the United States,” she said. “You have to take into account those who want the form in a different language and had to send their original forms back to ask for it. So, I think it’s going well.”
At the end of April, Smidt said, the Census Bureau will start sending workers door to door to count people who didn’t return the initial mailing – one of the most costly parts of the process.
”For every person that responds by mail it cost approximately $2,” she said. “The average cost to go out in the field is $30 per household, and nationwide for every 1 percent of the population that doesn’t respond it costs $25 million.”
Smidt said part of the problem getting people to respond is that people don’t know how valuable the information is to the government.
”People just don’t feel they have a real connection,” she said. “This is done every ten years for two main reasons. One is for the distribution of Representatives and the other is to decide how to distribute the $180 billion in federal funding.”
For example, she said, small businesses that are funded through federal loans are often given an amount of money based on census numbers. In addition, Smidt said, any new business that moves into the state uses census information to put a business and marketing plan together.
”Take Sovereign for example,” she said. “They just moved into the state, and I am sure that they will look at census numbers to do advertising, decide where they should put branches and other things like that.”
Brown agreed. “A lot of programs rely on the census,” he said. “It has social and economic effects. Businesses determine where to build movie theaters, malls and other attractions based on these numbers, and the numbers are also used for a lot of different social services such as the location and need for new schools.”
As a result, Smidt said, part of this year’s marketing plan includes asking businesses around the country to tell their customers about the importance of the census.
”Businesses have a great responsibility here,” she said. “We are encouraging that they put little messages on their Web pages, or link their site to the census site, or even telling customers that come in about the importance of the census.”
