By Arthur E. Foulkes
TERRE HAUTE — The U.S. Census Bureau is still seeking hundreds of job applicants to help count the population of Vigo County.
The bureau had hoped by this time to have a pool of at least 400 applicants for census taker jobs, but only about 90 people have submitted applications so far, a Census Bureau official said Tuesday.
“We’re a little behind,” said Bill Morris, local census office manager for southern Indiana, which includes Vigo County. “We are looking for more applicants in that area.”
Census takers, also called “enumerators,” will be hired to count Vigo County residents who do not respond to census questionnaires sent through the mail. The U.S. Census Bureau will begin sending the first of three mailings in mid-March. Census takers make face-to-face visits to any residences from which questionnaires were not returned.
It’s known as “non-response follow up,” Morris said.
While most of the census taker work will take place in the spring, some jobs will need to be filled in the next few weeks, Morris noted. In all, the bureau expects to hire 135 census takers for Vigo County, he said.
“We’ve got a ways to go,” said Darrel Zeck, director of the Terre Haute “complete count committee,” which hopes to make sure everyone living in the city is counted for the 2010 census. About $300 billion in federal funding is distributed annually based on census figures and each person counted represents potentially $300 in government funding, according to census officials.
“We’re going to count every one that we can,” Morris said.
Census taker jobs, which are awarded in eight-week segments, are part-time and pay between $12 and $15 per hour, Morris said. Travel expenses are reimbursed at 55 cents per mile and census takers also are paid for their training, he said.
Typically about 70 percent of households return their census forms through the mail, said Norm Crampton, a census bureau official who spoke at a Dec. 8 meeting of the complete count committee in Terre Haute. Counting the remaining 30 percent is the job of the census takers.
The 2010 census questionnaire includes just 10 questions and does not ask for any personal financial information, Morris noted. It takes only about 10 minutes to answer the questions, he said.
“It’s a very important 10 minutes,” Morris said. “It will affect the community for the next 10 years.”
To find out how to apply for census taker positions, call the Census Bureau at 1-866-861-2010.
Applicants are required to pass a security background check and also must take a 28-question test. Sample tests are available at the jobs@census link at www.census.gov.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
