Time is running out to participate this year's US Census. Because of the pandemic, and action by Congress, the deadline is now just about two weeks away.
Marion Meginnis, chair of Davenport's Complete Count Committee, says the Census got a late start due to COVID-19. And the enumerators who make personal visits to people who've not replied, originally had until the end of October to complete their work. Then Congress decided to move up the deadline to September 30th.
"We've done it through wars, we've done it through everything, and never had a situation like this before. And to have it potentially be forced to end early because of perhaps politics is really, really, really frustrating."
So far the response rate in Scott County is 72.5 per cent, just below the 2010 rate of 72.8. While in Rock lsland County it's 70.5 per cent, nearly two percentage points lower than 2010.
And those tenths and percentage points matter - Meginnis says the final count will help determine how and where 1.5 trillion federal dollars are spent over the next ten years, and how many seats each state will have in the US House.