Spotlight On

April 1st is Census Day

April 1st is the reference day for the 2020 Census. Conducted every ten years since 1790, the census is a national effort to count every individual living in every household in the country.

Why is the census important? In addition to simply counting heads, the data collected from the census is used to determine grants (including the National School Lunch program, WIC, Medicaid, and Head Start), House of Representatives seats, redistricting, and emergency services.

For books with easy to read reports and statistics created in part thanks to the census, check out the 300s in our reference section.

Census information is also important to history. Ancestry.com, accessible through the library for free, depends heavily on each decade’s census to track where an individual was and with whom during which year.

The 2020 Census is also hiring temporary workers to assist in the census taking process.

If you are interested in working for the 2020 Census or wish to learn more about why every person COUNTS visit 2020census.gov.