The Light with Raymond Tyler
With less than two months until the end of the 2020 Census count, the latest response rate among African Americans in Atlantic City is falling behind, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. There is mounting pressure to get more people from the community to get counted.
Every ten years America completes a census to count how many people live in America. We are currently in the middle of a census year. The next census will not be taken until 2030.
According to 2020 Census Contact, Lisa Moore, “community leaders and Census partners have done a great job promoting the message that completing the 2020 Census is safe, easy, and important. Currently, Hunterdon County leads the state of New Jersey with a rate of 74 percent.”
According to www.2020Census.gov, the overall rate of response for NJ is about 64.9% and the rate of completed census information for Atlantic City is only 41.3 %. As of August 5, the response rate in Atlantic City was 35.4 percent, about 4.2 percent lower than in the 2010 final count. The coronavirus pandemic, which shut down casinos and other businesses, as well as the looming presidential elections, compound the undercount problem in the Black community.
Considering that the news is always talking about Covid-19 or the 2020 Presidential race, it is easy to understand why Atlantic City may be lagging behind in responding to the 2020 Census.
Atlantic City, like every other city in America, has been battling the Covid-19 pandemic this year. Atlantic City’s major employers, the casinos, were shut down in March, April and May. Casino workers, from groundskeepers and housekeeping to dealers and security guards, all found themselves needing to figure out how to make rent. Most of the city’s inhabitants had to figure out how to keep their lights on and make insurance payments, as well as homeschool their children. Black people were not the only ones struggling, but were more likely to suffer economically and also more likely to have a relative as a frontline worker in a hospital.
The Black community of Atlantic City is far behind in completing The 2020 Census. Black communities, however, across the United States have been undercounted for decades, affecting federal funding allocations to programs that serve them.
According to Census 2020 contact Peter Chen, roughly “2 million children under the age of 5 were not counted in the last census. This directly impacts funding for schools and libraries.”
The U.S. Government, specifically the department that handles The Census, has been sponsoring more advertising and community buy-in than ever to try and get a complete and accurate count this year. More money than ever has been spent to get the Black community and Atlantic City counted.
The good news is that The Census 2020 is not over. Black and Brown people need to make sure everyone in their household is counted. Please make contact today by phone or online. If an enumerator comes to your home, please answer. They may need to follow up. They will have an official Census 2020 badge and I.D. They cannot ask you about warrants, any social security information, or immigration status. Enumerators can be placed in jail if any of your information is shared with anyone, including other government offices.
Atlantic City and other shore areas often have properties owned by people that live outside the city and state. 2020 Census Contact Ahmed Butt advises to “count yourself at the residence that you live at most of the time. If that time is split evenly, count yourself where you were staying on April 1st, 2020.”
This year’s census is easy to complete. You can call 844-330-2020 right now and answer a few questions about everyone that lives in your house (or lived there on April 1st). You can also complete your census online by going to this website: https://2020census.gov/en/ways-to-respond/responding-online.html.
You can connect with Raymond Tyler via Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram @RaymondTyler2018.
