The Census is Vitally Important to Norwich – Do your part!

By Mayor Peter Nystrom

Earlier this year, the federal government officially launched the 2020 U.S. Census which takes place every ten years, as mandated by our Constitution. The census attempts to count every single person living in the United States – both citizens and noncitizens – and helps our government with several critical functions that impact all our lives.

The census will take you only a few minutes to complete, and by doing so, you will be making an important contribution to Norwich and our future.

There are numerous important decisions that are made based on the census that have a direct impact on the City of Norwich and our community. A great deal of funding that the federal government provides to states, cities and towns is based on information drawn from the census. According to the Census Bureau, the agency responsible for completing the survey, more than $675 billion in federal funds for health, education, housing and infrastructure programs are distributed after taking this information into consideration.

Having the most complete and accurate information for Norwich provided through the census will help ensure that we get our fair share of funding for a variety of federal programs from Head Start and school lunch programs to special education, highway planning and construction and Medicaid.

Information from the census is also used in the event our community ever needs to apply to the federal government for assistance following a natural disaster or emergency. How and where agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency provide any type of assistance is based largely on the number of people in our community.

The U.S. Census also provides the private sector with important information about every community in the United States. Businesses of all sizes and in every industry carefully analyze the characteristics of big cities and small towns as they decide where to move to – or from; where to invest or where to locate a distribution center.

Most homes should have received an invitation to respond to the census which takes only a few minutes to complete. During the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau will never ask you for your Social Security number, for money or donations, anything on behalf of a political party, or your bank or credit card account numbers. In addition, there is no citizenship question on the 2020 Census.

So please join me in making sure that our community is counted accurately in the 2020 census.