I shamelessly swiped this from a private Facebook post by someone who (maybe) purports to be a Census worker. Because I am a bad person, but also because it’s potentially useful, I am sharing it and you can share it too.

Begin statement from purported Census worker

Not making this statement in any official capacity: I’ve been out working on the census for the last few weeks, and first off I want to say that it’s been a far more pleasant experience than I anticipated, even with the pandemic.

As far as I know at this point we’ve got to wrap it up by the end of the month. I’m not going to tell you why it’s important, I think everyone has heard the pitch for that.

But I wanted to let folks know a couple of things that I find myself explaining regularly during the day, starting with some reasons why I might be ringing your doorbell even though you already completed your Census:

• you moved since April 1st (if you can find out whether the place was occupied then it’d help a ton)
• your house has been renovated and the number of units present has changed in the last decade
• you live near a place that any ordinary person would be able to recognize as not being inhabited, but we’re obligated to talk to someone who knows about the place
• your neighbors haven’t answered the door or haven’t wanted to talk and we’re trying to get something
• your neighbors are an Airbnb
• you live in a building with a single entrance for multiple units (we can’t even leave notices in some of these situations)

If you mailed it in and we haven’t gotten it yet, please help us get it entered. If you don’t want to talk outside for covid reasons we can call you on the phone, or you can call in. You won’t get double counted.

If a place is vacant and we can record that it frees us up to get to more places that aren’t vacant.

I realize that you probably don’t know your neighbors birthdates. Do your best on age, and if you don’t know or don’t want to give info on their ethnic background we can complete it with don’t know/refused. Don’t know their names or don’t feel like giving them? That’s cool too.

All of the answers are confidential, not shared even with the rest of the government (including IRS, ICE or that public library you have a massive fine at.)

Again, I’m not posting this in any official capacity, but as a neighbor I know other folks care about getting this done, (I wouldn’t be going door to door just for the money) and I realize some of this isn’t obvious.