Participating in the census boosts community funding

Calls to boycott the U.S. census are misguided. An undercount will result in less federal money allocated to communities for Medicaid, foster care and roads. Everyone should participate.

THE 2010 census requires full participation from everyone. Nothing less can ensure accuracy and fairness in population numbers used to apportion political representation and federal aid.

A federal study estimates that more than 20,000 people in King County evaded census takers in 2000. Times reporter David Heath writes that a repeat performance would produce a $160 million loss in federal funds used to build roads and provide medical care for the sick.

The census is a constitutionally mandated duty and results help determine funding for Medicaid, foster care and disability services. Those who tend to be undercounted, and whose communities thus receive fewer services, are often our most economically vulnerable, including racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants and people with disabilities.

Recessionary times heighten the importance of ensuring these groups are included in the count.

Other concerns include the U.S. Census Bureau's lack of preparedness for next year's count.

After a several-month delay, the U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed Robert M. Groves as director of the U.S. Census Bureau. President Obama nominated Groves last April and the ensuing months without a leader exacerbated the Census Bureau's struggle to prepare for next year.

Credit Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Washington's former governor, for filling the void with three top advisers to the census and a national call for local committees to campaign on behalf of the decennial count.

Committee leaders will need to battle efforts to derail the census, including misguided calls for a boycott. Latino leaders tying census participation to comprehensive immigration reform risk hurting their communities. Some Republican lawmakers in Congress, criticizing census questions as invasive, appear to confuse the questionnaire with the American Community Survey, a longer form sent randomly to households every year.

Federal law prevents the census from sharing information from its forms for 72 years.

The census isn't Big Brother peeking into living rooms. It is the backbone of federal statistics. When the numbers are accurate, we have our fullest picture of America.

Boycotting it is not a form of political or individual expression, but a misguided nod to a smaller share of federal funding for the communities in which we live.