Full Transcription:
Speaker 1:
I want to be counted.
Speaker 2:
Count me in.
Speaker 3:
Be counted. You’re response matters.
Speaker 4:
I want to be counted.
Speaker 5:
I want to be counted.
Speaker 6:
I want to be counted.
Speaker 7:
I want to be counted.
Speaker 8:
I want to be counted.
Speaker 7:
I want to be counted too. Well don’t forget to count him either.
Speaker 9:
I want to be counted.
Speaker 10:
Don’t forget about me.
Jeff Thompson:
Be counted. Your response matters. Go to www.2020census.gov. Let’s all be counted together and individually, we can all make a difference.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. It’s census time and today is Census Day April fool’s, no joking and that’s an email I just got from Susan Kusz. She’s the state program administrator for State Services for the Blind in Minnesota.
Jeff Thompson:
Susan is also the chair of the Complete Council Account Committee Disability Work Group for the state of Minnesota. That means she’s a census expert. She’s in the studio today. Glad to have you here. Thanks for taking the time in joining us. How are you doing Susan?
Susan:
I’m doing good. Thanks, Jeff for having me on the podcast today.
Jeff Thompson:
Well Susan, with all that’s going on in the world today, we still have Census Day.
Susan:
Yes, today is Census Day and right now with this pandemic, this is one of the things that they never even thought about when we were doing all this promoting of trying to get everybody counted starting officially today.
Susan:
It’s really super important with this pandemic to know how many people that we have in our great state of Minnesota. So that things like medical treatment, how many hospital beds we need, and where we need them at. I can’t stress enough how much our current situation is a really good reason to promote people to get counted on the census.
Susan:
The other reasons that we have been promoting that are just as important is, each community, when people get counted, money gets divvied out to go out to those communities for services. Things like the WIC program, and Medicaid, and schools, and even money to work on our roads, and our parks, and our community centers. The dollars for those are figured by census numbers.
Jeff Thompson:
Those numbers stick with us until they do it again in 10 years. It’s very important to be counted.
Susan:
Exactly. The other big thing that was really super important for Minnesotans this census is the fact that our seats for our legislators are based on how many people we have in our great state of Minnesota. If you’re not in the count, we end up losing part of our voice here in state legislator as well as the federal legislatures. Another good reason to be counted.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, because the population is determined by the census.
Susan:
Then the businesses in our areas also base whether they’re going to build, say a new grocery store or a new facility of some sort. That’s all based on how many people get counted. For our disability community it’s important because just in going out and talking to people, Jeff, over the last couple of months trying to promote the census. I found that there was quite a few people that had never actually filled out a census on their own.
Susan:
This could be because someone else did it or them, but this time they’re doing the census online. You receive a letter with a unique code. You go to the link that’s provided in the letter. That website would be 2020census.gov. You enter your unique code and then you’re asked about 10 questions. It takes less than 10 minutes. I’d probably say five because I’ve already done mine to just answer the questions about who lives in your house.
Susan:
A real important thing is, is to just only count the people that are living in your house the day that you complete your census. Today, you don’t necessarily count the people that are away at school, but please make sure you count babies and small children because I guess a lot of times they get missed in the count.
Jeff Thompson:
Susan if I may?
Susan:
Yeah Jeff.
Jeff Thompson:
I noticed that the census does not ask about a disability. How do they determine the population with disabilities?
Susan:
The census department does conduct other surveys where they do ask specific questions about disabilities. On this particular census there is not. However, Jeff, there is a survey that they do or at random addresses. Actually a couple surveys, but the one that I worked on last year was the crime Victimization Survey. I did end up asking respondents did they have any disabilities like problems with vision, problems with hearing, problems with mobility.
Susan:
We did talk to a federal representative for our region who’s been on our Complete Count Committee with State Services for the Blind about this particular thing. I guess the Census Bureau feels that because they do that and they do another survey called the American Community Survey. They asked those questions on that survey as well.
Susan:
They feel that they can get a pretty good gauge of how many people have disabilities, but nonetheless, like I said, if you’re not completing your decennial, I think that’s part of the equation too for the bigger number to get counted.
Jeff Thompson:
That makes perfectly good sense because if you have X amount or if you have X times 10, that’s a bigger number. Needing for a bigger allocation of monies for the state.
Susan:
Exactly. You can also call in to have someone who is an official census worker help you complete it. If you go to 2020census.gov and you go to contact us, they actually have all the different numbers for people to call that maybe using a different language, TDD number, for general questions, or frequently asked questions. All that is right there.
Susan:
I found out today that paper copies will be sent out, but it won’t be until May 1st. The other point that I’d like to make about funding is that they’ve said that each person that’s counted in Minnesota, we receive $28,000 over the course of the 10 years that this number that we get for this decennial will be representative of the population in Minnesota until the next one. They also estimated that approximately 965,000 people in Minnesota alone have not been counted in the last decennial.
Susan:
Now how they come up with these numbers, I’m not exactly sure on the science of it, but what I can tell you Jeff, is if you take 965,000 and times it by 28,000 that’s a lot of money that Minnesota is missing out on.
Susan:
I’m going to go back to the situation of our health concerns right now and these dollars are allocated for state, local, and federal law makers to put out into our communities. This is for emergency services and hospitals. When people don’t get counted and they’re telling us that the disability community is one of the other counted communities. That’s why we took this interest since I think about October trying to make sure that people in all the disability communities were included in our outreach.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, Susan. I think it’s really great that there’s work groups like yours in the state of Minnesota and across the nation that are advocating for people with disabilities to have access. It’s really great that we can just go online, 2020census.gov. Make a couple of clicks, answer a few questions, and poof, we’re done. Or if we can’t do that, we can at least make a phone call and find out how we can do it or get assistance on doing this. It’s really great and I know there’s deadlines, but I think that might get pushed out a little bit.
Susan:
Some of the dynamics of the timeline, we may see that be pushed out just a little bit this time, but the Census Bureau constitutionally is required by law to have the census done. They’re kind of wandering too, like what’s going to happen, but if you don’t complete it, if you don’t answer the call, so to speak. Eventually a field rep from the Census Bureau is going to come knocking on your door and conduct the questions in person with you. With the current state, with the pandemic and everything, I would just really, really encourage the public to please go online, or call, or get somebody to help you with the paper copy. Just remember all your answers are confidential.
Jeff Thompson:
Susan, as chairperson, could somebody contact the complete Census Count Committee Disability Work Group?
Susan:
You can reach out to me by emailing me at Susan, S-U-S-A-N.kusz. That’s spelled K-U-S-Z @state.mn.uf or you can call me on my phone at (651) 539-2271. So Jeff, I’m wondering, do you have any questions about the census?
Jeff Thompson:
No, I think you’ve answered most of the questions that I had. Laurie went online and she said she got done with it in about 10 minutes and it wasn’t difficult at all for her. It was using jaws on a PC. What was really funny is a couple of days later we got something in the mail and Laurie just went, “I already did it.”
Susan:
Yeah. They don’t ask any personal questions about your income. They don’t ask for your social security number. The Census Bureau is not going to send you an email, which I noticed last night on the news that this was something that is I guess scammers have found a way to take advantage of the situation with this pandemic.
Susan:
They were talking about how the stimulus checks that their government’s talking about sending out that somehow these scammers are linking the census with the stimulus checks and that’s not the case.
Susan:
What I can tell you too, Jeff, is that if someone were to come knock at your door and start asking you about financial information, your social security number, your bank accounts, they’re not a census worker.
Susan:
As a matter of fact, if you had any questions about whether someone actually really worked for the Census Bureau, you can call the regional office and you could take down their name and then you could call the regional office and verify their employment.
Susan:
Another way is that they are going to have a bag with the census logo on it. They would also have a work badge that would have an official logo of the census and a picture and their name. I just really strongly urge people with all this craziness that’s going on with scams and stuff these days. Is if there’s any doubt in your mind, please pick up the phone, verify that they actually are employed with the Census Bureau, and do not give out any personal identifying information.
Susan:
Say other than your name and of course your address, which they would know because they’re standing there. I think the form also Jeff, it asks for a phone number. That’s just in case they can’t figure out a question you answered. Maybe it doesn’t make sense or a lot of times want to just verify that the information that was entered is correct. It is kind of important or helpful for you to include your telephone number when you’re completing the form either online or the paper copy of it.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, we’ll put the phone number and the link right in the show notes and people can do that.
Susan:
That’s great.
Jeff Thompson:
Sounds a lot easier way to do it as either make that phone call if you have a little trouble with it or just get online and get her done.
Susan:
The other thing I wanted to mention because I’m looking at this email right now that I got today from the Census Bureau. They’re saying that already 36.2% of households across the United States have already responded to the 2020 census since the invitations had started arriving mid-March.
Susan:
The census is also in 59 other languages. I know that our partners at DHS and the Commission on Deaf and Hard of Hearing, they worked really hard on getting videos done in ASL. Informative videos and videos on how to complete the census and what the census was all about. If you did not know, and I believe those videos are still posted on the Commission or Deaf and Hard of Hearings website.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great.
Susan:
They were done in sign language. They were closed captioned and they did still have a voice that went along with it as well.
Jeff Thompson:
So Susan, let’s say transition aged students, some that are in college, how are they counted?
Susan:
For college students, the count is a little bit different. If they live on a campus in a university or college housing, like a dorm or fraternity or sorority house, the school should be counting them. It does get a little confusing Jeff because what the census said is to include everyone who usually lives or sleeps in your home as of April 1st.
Susan:
If I would’ve came home on Friday and today now is April 1st and my parents are getting ready to complete the census. They’re probably going to look at this and go, okay, well I guess I need to count you. If they also were counted at the college some way that Census Bureau has on the back side to see when people have been counted in two places. Like for this particular example I’m using anyway. They would be able to delete one of those entries so that a person isn’t counted twice.
Jeff Thompson:
Gets complicated, doesn’t it?
Susan:
It does some of the time. I think the most complicated things that our committee worked on was the people that live in group homes and people that have guardians. That to me was really not super clear on can a guardian answer the questions?
Susan:
The thing is, is that the information is confidential. If somebody didn’t have the ability to answer for themselves, but they still felt that it was important, even though it’s confidential, I think I would say go ahead and help them answer their questions. Even if you’re not an official census worker.
Susan:
We were supposed to have these questionnaire assistance centers and that was actually going to be where you had a volunteer on the internet or on a device where they would take the answers that somebody was giving and submit their form.
Susan:
With that being said, then you’re not keeping any of their personal data. The Census Bureau thought that was okay to do it that way. All these efforts Jeff had been done because we just really want to make sure that we can count everybody that we possibly can because again, it’s about the funding. It’s about our infrastructure as a state and helping communities get the services that they need. It’s about making sure that, hey, you’re living in a food desert. That might be a real good motivator to get your census.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go.
Susan:
Form done and get counted. One last topic Jeff that I really think is super important that I’d like to touch on.
Jeff Thompson:
All right.
Susan:
Because this came up quite lot in conversation when I talk to different groups and actually prior to say the forms being finalized for this year’s decennial. One of the big overarching questions was, is there going to be a citizens question on the census?
Susan:
The Census Bureau said, “No.” They were not going to put a question about whether or not you’re a citizen on the form. I can’t stress enough Jeff again, how important it is to have everybody counted. There is a lot of stigmas and misconceptions about why the census is done. When I would go speak, I would tell people, hey, the census is not anything new. Of course in the United States, I think it started like in 1780 or something like way, way back. So this has been going on for quite a long time.
Susan:
I know there’s a lot of fear from people who are say immigrants or that may not be in this country legally and I would still encourage them to fill out the census anyway. When we were going through questionnaire assistance center training, and I did that because I wanted to know exactly what they were requiring organizations to do.
Susan:
Initially all the library’s pretty much in the state of Minnesota, public and libraries at universities, all stepped up to be questionnaire assistance centers. One of the reasons for this was because people think, hey, typically the library is a pretty safe place to go.
Susan:
During that training, one of the questions came up that said, “Well somebody is real hesitant about getting their questionnaire done. How would you encourage them?” One of my answers was this, “Say you’re an illegal immigrant or your immigrant status and you’re concerned about, well really anybody concerned about, oh, I didn’t file my taxes right. Are they going to share this information with other government agencies? Are they going to send ICE after me or the police? No. None of the information that the Census Bureau collects is shared with any other government agency for I think it’s 72 years. So it’s a really super long time.”
Susan:
The other piece of it was that I said, “If you don’t want a census worker coming to knock at your door, because you fall into one of those categories that I just was talking about. Probably best to just answer the census and get it done with. Then no one’s going to come knocking at the door.” Even for people aren’t real hit in the head with government or you might say, oh, they’re anti-government. Those people too. I would say, “Hey, look, when a field rep comes out, the field reps are told to make six attempts to an address to try to get the questionnaire answered. If that field rep still can’t get an answer, they send other people like supervisors and people that are a little more aggressive with their attempt to try to get the census answered because it’s really, as citizens of the United States, we are constitutionally and legally obligated to answer the questions on the census form.”
Susan:
If you’re not comfortable with divulging your name or any other specific real information, what I would say is you can always go in and say citizen one. Say you have a family of five. You can always just number each person in the household with whatever number they are. Then whatever other questions that you can answer that you feel comfortable doing, I would just strongly urge that you do.
Susan:
Some of this too, is that specifically Jeff, now, I know you said Laurie filled the form out, but they ask questions like, I believe they ask questions about your ethnicity or your race. They ask what year you’re born in or your birthdate. I think some of that is because specific funds are allocated for different age categories, or different race categories, or that sort of thing. So please, I just encourage people to please answer the questions that you’re comfortable with. If you’re not comfortable with, think of an educated response, like I’d mentioned, respondent one or citizen one or something like that to get the form completed.
Jeff Thompson:
Great. Well Susan, thank you so much for all the work that you do and spending your time here on Blind Abilities to help get the word out. People go check the links so you can find the phone number and the website so you can get counted and make sure that we get our allocated money sent to our state. Thank you Susan.
Susan:
You’re very welcome Jeff. If people want more information, that website would be 2020census.gov.
Jeff Thompson:
Great.
Susan:
Then last but not least, if you are interested in trying to work for the Census Bureau, they have the number on the bottom of the page as well.
Susan:
I just want to thank you so much, Jeff, for taking the time to have me on your show today. It was really a privilege and an honor to be able to share all the knowledge about the census, and Census Day, and this particular decennial the 2020 census.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, Susan, thank you so much for coming on the Blind Abilities and sharing all your knowledge about the census. Thank you for the work you do for the census and people go online, 2020census.gov and be sure that you’re counted because it matters. It makes a difference in your state, your region, your community. It’s your duty. It’s in the constitution. Let’s get her done. Susan, thank you very much.
Susan:
You’re so welcome, Jeff. You have a great day.
Jeff Thompson:
Be sure to contact your state services for the blind, your voc rehab, and find out what they can do for you. Live, work, read, succeed. For more podcasts with the Blindness Perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com. On Twitter at blindabilities and download the free Blind Abilities App from the app store and on Google Play. That’s two words, Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
You can also enable the Blind Abilities, skill on your Amazon device. Just say enable Blind Abilities. Most importantly, I want to thank you, the listener. Thank you for listening, hope you enjoyed, and until next time, bye bye.
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