The 2020 Census will play an important role in our state’s economic future.
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The 2020 Census will play an important role in our state’s economic future.
This once-a-decade count provides valuable data on communities, including population trends and growth projections. It’s in the best interest of the business community to support the state of Connecticut’s goal to achieve a complete count.
In February, the Lamont-Bysiewicz administration launched the Connecticut Complete Count Committee to inform and direct the state’s efforts in the upcoming census. The committee — made up of over 50 trusted partners — is an advisory panel of community leaders from across the state who represent diverse populations including elected officials, faith leaders, community activists, chambers of commerce, health centers, civic groups, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP and other nonprofit organizations.
This is a major effort in advance of the 2020 Census to ensure that Connecticut will be the most accurately counted state in the nation. Counting everyone in this increasingly diverse and changing population is a mammoth undertaking that demands detailed planning and the support of our businesses.
Why is the census important, particularly for Connecticut and its business community? Well, we are a “donor” state because we give more money in taxes to the federal government than what we receive.
Census data is used to determine nearly $11 billion in funding for Connecticut each year for the 55 largest federal programs that our communities depend on. In fact, for every person that is left out of the count, our state loses an average of $2,900. This includes federal funding for Medicaid and Medicare, Head Start, National School Lunch Program, student-loan assistance, community facility loans, home-heating assistance, highway planning and construction, business and industry loans as well as career and technical-education funding.
We cannot risk losing those critical dollars, which is why I was proud to recently announce that the state of Connecticut identified $500,000 within existing and available appropriations across state agencies to aid in census efforts. That state funding will be matched by an additional $500,000 donated by various philanthropic foundations throughout the state.
This is in addition to almost $400,000 previously committed by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
Businesses will be interested in knowing that census data is the basis for distributing federal grants for future economic development. Census data also helps inform better decision-making with respect to business expansion and hiring strategies. This information helps support growth projections and helps industries identify prime locations to open new operations or markets in which to expand.
As companies both within Connecticut and across the country look closely at their workforce needs, an accurate census count will give businesses a sense of the opportunity that exists in our state and have long-range, positive impacts for our region for the next decade.
Chambers of commerce and the business community are vital to ensuring that everyone is counted in the 2020 Census, and we ask businesses to help inform employees and partners about the importance of the census.
Lt. Gov. Bysiewicz chairs the CT Complete Count Committee for the 2020 Census.
