HELENA — The State-Tribal Relations Committee learned more about plans for the 2020 Census on Friday in Helena.
A census representative at the committee meeting said that one of the biggest issues from the 2010 Census was a low response rate across all tribal lands in Montana.
They attributed that to a lack of alternative resources for tribal members to respond to the census. The census rep said that Complete Count committees have been formed on all tribal lands except for the Crow Tribe.
“We have the ability to go into the 2010 census documents and look at Montana at what counties and even census tracts are low-response rate,” U.S. Census bureau partnership specialist Colleen McCarthy said.
“We’ve got one, one in the whole state. Guess where that is? Big Horn County. So, we are focused -- in the next couple of weeks -- [on] getting out there and getting that done.”
Officials estimate Montana will receive about $2,000 for each person counted, which is $20,000 per person for the decade. You will be able to respond to the US Census with an online application beginning on March 12.
