Follow the Money

Count on Your Census

All across the country, a movement is organizing to Get Out the Count. Community groups, national nonprofits, business leaders, mayors and governors are asking all of us to fill out the Census and encourage our neighbors to do the same. They are organizing around a unified message. Census data determine how federal dollars are allocated to resources we rely upon every day: roads, schools, housing assistance, hospitals, drinking water and more. And census data also determines political seats and representation in Congress, and by extension, the power and influence a community can wield. Terri Ann Lowenthal, The Census Project, and Andrew Reamer, George Washington University Research Professor, lay out what can happen when communities are undercounted and census data is incomplete.