County in danger of losing millions with low census count
Marengo County may lose up to $38 million over the next ten years unless residents step up to respond to the census.
Cautioning fellow Marengo County Commissioners at their meeting Tuesday, Jason Windham said the county is lagging far behind in the number of people responding to the census.
The U.S. Constitution mandates the federal government count the number of residents in the country every 10 years. Congress determines the amount of money that flows into states, counties and municipalities based on the census count.
Windham said Marengo County ranks 60th out of 67 Alabama counties in the percentage of those who have responded to the census questionnaire that was mailed in March or who have gone online or called the census number. The county has a 39.7 return rate.
“I don’t think people really take it as seriously as they should be taking it,” Windham said.
Each person is equivalent to $1,800 from state and federal money, he explained. The projected number of people in the county for 2020 is 18,863 compared to the 2010 count of 21,027. That is a loss of $3.895 million per year for the next 10 years.
“It takes less than 30 seconds to fill it out,” he said. “If somebody would give you $1,800 to sit down for 30 seconds, I think we’d probably have 100 percent reporting.”
If you have not completed your census questionnaire, you can do so by visiting https://my2020census.gov/.