“If your aim is to see your neighbors die, don’t fill out the census,” census researcher Andrew Reamer tells those who have asked him how important the census is over the last few months. In the middle of a pandemic, he says, the stakes have never been higher for census completion. “In a way, in a very strong way, filling out the census is like wearing a mask in public. It has the same kind of impact. If you want to prevent your neighbors from getting sick and dying off, [make sure they] have protections when they lose their job, fill out the census.”
But the best way for a city to be prepared for a pandemic is to have strong health-care infrastructure before the public health crisis hits. “Census results inform planning and funding decisions for the city including hospitals, health clinics, and health-care services,” says Marilyn Sanders, the Chicago Regional Director for the census. The count informs the Chicago city government’s determination of where new hospitals and clinics are needed and how many people hospitals may need to serve. Census numbers also impact federal block grant funding for cities to use in the construction of hospitals and health-care clinics, as well as to put towards funding resources for health-care facilities.
But even for those who never get sick or don’t know anyone who will become infected, the economic and social impacts of the pandemic still reverberate. Most of the money allocated through congressional stimulus and economic acts, currently totaling over $3 trillion, of which Illinois received $4.9 billion with a $1.1 billion allocation to Chicago, are distributed on the basis of census data, helping people manage the shutdown of schools, businesses, and more in the era of social distancing.
This story was made possible by a grant from Forefront administered by Public Narrative.
