Wisconsin needs to take a hard look at its 2020 Census count.
First, full disclosure, as my opinion is anything but objective. I worked for the Census from the spring of 2019 until the fall of 2020 as a partnership specialist. My job was to work with several counties in Central and Southwestern Wisconsin promoting community engagement.
The Wisconsin Census team was expected to generate partnerships that could lead to greater participation. The federal government was spending hundreds of millions of dollars promoting the Census, but in the end a lot of it would come down to these one-to-one connections between business and community leaders and people like myself.
Yes, we were “feds,” but people were generally inclined to believe us—I think because we were local. Away from politics, the Census is largely about money. Your population count has a direct impact on how much of the $1.5 trillion dollars in federal aid is targeted to your state.
If we could translate those local connections into a productive partnership with local businesses or school boards, it could generate a more accurate Census. If a community could prove its population had grown in the last ten years, it might qualify for more federal aid. An incentive to make sure everyone gets counted.
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