65% of Census Forms Returned, Matching 1990

WASHINGTON — Sixty-five percent of American households have returned their 2000 census forms, equaling the 1990 return rate with some forms still coming in, U.S. Census Director Kenneth Prewitt said Wednesday.

“This is a serious achievement,” Prewitt proclaimed, noting that the Census Bureau had expected the response rate to fall slightly.

Equaling the 1990 return rate reverses a “decades-long decline in meeting our civic responsibility,” he said.

In March, about 120 million census questionnaires were mailed or hand-delivered to homes across the country.

Now 500,000 census workers go into the field for follow-up operations, where they call on households that did not mail back their forms. That effort will run from April 27 to July 7.

The Constitution requires the count every 10 years to reapportion seats in the House of Representatives.

In addition, billions of federal dollars are distributed based on population formulas calculated from the information collected in the census.

This makes a good response vital to local officials, who conduct campaigns to encourage their citizens to cooperate. Some communities reportedly have offered residents cash to complete the forms.