While Yucca Valley’s 61.9 percent response rate for the 2020 Census is slightly better than that of the entire state of California, at 61.6 percent, nearly 40 percent of the town’s population still has not responded to the short and easy survey. Managing editor Tami Roleff explains why the Census is so important…
The results of the 2020 census results are used to determine how much funding local communities receive for key public services and how many seats each state gets in Congress. State and local officials also use census counts to draw boundaries for congressional, state legislative, and school districts. States gain or lose seats in Congress (and the Electoral College, which determines presidential elections) depending on how much their population changes relative to the nation at large. And while you are required by law to participate, the Census Bureau is also required by law to protect your answers. Your responses are used only to produce statistics. The Census Bureau does not disclose any personal information. The 2020 census will ask how many people are living or staying in your home, whether you own or rent, and your home is a house, mobile home, or apartment; your telephone number, the name, sex, age, birth date, ethnicity of each person in the home, and the relationship to other people in the home.
For more information, see census.gov or californiacensus.org.
