On Wednesday, the Mayor's Office Tweeted the disappointing news that NYC was lagging in its 2010 census participation, with the city's participation at 6% while the country as a whole was at 16%. Now the Mayor's Office says, "Send in your #Census form so #NYC benefits! We're still behind the national rate: 16% of NYC forms sent back versus 29% across the country... We all can do a better job sending back the #Census! #Queens=15% #Brooklyn=13% #StatenIsland=24% #Bronx=13% #Manhattan=19%"
You can see how well—or how badly—your neighborhood is doing with sending in census forms by checking out the Take 10 Map. You can zoom in on specific tracts of the city. And the Census Bureau explains:
"The Mail Participation Rate is the percentage of forms mailed back by households that received them. The Census Bureau developed this new measure in 2010, in part because of the current economy and higher rates of vacant housing. The rate excludes households whose forms were returned to us by the U.S. Postal Service as “undeliverable,” strongly suggesting the house was vacant. We will still follow up on all these housing units to ensure everyone is counted.
Mail Participation Rate is a higher number than the Mail Response Rate we have used over the last decade, but it is a better measure of actual participation and therefore an easier goal to achieve when residents mail back their forms. In 2000, the national Mail Response Rate was 67% and the comparable national Mail Participation Rate was 72%. The Mail Response Rate is important to help us plan for the important door-to-door workload that begins in May during which we visit all households that have not returned a census form.
More details at the 2010 Census site.
