IMPORTANT CENSUS UPDATE: WE HAVE FIVE WEEKS LEFT TO ENSURE EVERYONE IS COUNTED! [childrennow.org]

The Census Bureau has recently updated their Census operations timeline, which now shortens the timeframe to return your completed 2020 Census form by one month. The new deadline is September 30. Congress did not include extensions for critical timelines related to the 2020 Census, so the Bureau has cut back operations to "accelerate the completion of data collection and apportionment counts by our statutory deadline of December 31, 2020, as required by law and directed by the Secretary of Commerce."

We only have five more weeks to ensure every person in the country is counted.

As of August 19, the response rate in the state of California is 65.9% - up 2% from three weeks ago. We are making progress! Let's get our count even higher before September 30! Some of our hardest to count communities are lagging. The city of Los Angeles is reporting a 53% response rate, while Mono County is reporting a 20.7% response rate, showing a wide variance in responses. With far less on-the-ground resources, it's essential to continue reaching out to our communities and reminding them to complete the census; this is the final push. The 2020 Census response could mean the difference of billions of dollars in resources for your community, in addition to the potential loss of Congressional representation if response numbers are low. Governors from several states including CO, MI, IL, and others have called on the federal government to extend the deadline given concerns about an undercount.

GRANDPARENTS AND YOUNG CHILDREN: SOCIAL MEDIA RESOURCES AND CONTENT

Children Now has created a comprehensive resource page that elevates content focused on grandparents, young children, and communities of color – it includes the myriad of toolkits created for the 2020 Census by organizations in California and around the country, as well as social media content and photos you can use in your efforts to reach diverse constituents in your community.