ALERT: Supreme Court Rules to End 2020 Census Early!

Census Impacts NC Public Health and Human Services

On October 13^th, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump Administration to end the U.S. Census count earlier than expected.  The census intake process was due to wrap up at the end of October.  Instead, all census intakes end at 6 a.m. Eastern Standard Time this Friday, October 16^th.  Individuals can respond to the census request by completing a form online or calling to complete the form.  Forms that are sent by mail must be postmarked on or before October 15^th 

As reported by the i2i Center in March 2020, completing and submitting your census information could help increase the State’s funding through Medicaid, block grants and other federal programs.  To take it a step further, the Census information helps distinguish needs to address racial and health inequities. 

According to The Leadership Conference Education Fund, the 2020 Census data is used in a myriad of ways to make decisions in national healthcare funding and structure for many years after the census is taken:

• Medicaid funding formula is based on the income data derived from the census;
• Poverty guidelines are set from CHIP (NC Health Choice) using this data;
• Health care access policies use racial/ethnic data in the census because it includes groups not represented in other data;
• Social Determinants of Health indicators that can be tracked to take into account census data collected, including housing, income and national origin.