It’s Census Day. How will coronavirus affect the 2020 US population count?

April 1 is Census Day, meaning you’ll tell the Census Bureau where you’re living as of today in the population survey.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Census Bureau has made adjustments to its normal schedule. People can respond by mail, phone, or online by August 14 instead of the originally planned July 31 date.

The Census Bureau is behind on hiring workers to go door-to-door to get responses from people due to the virus, according to CNN. It had already planned to hire less than half the 1.2 million employees it had in 2010 since the transition to the online form. Compared to 2010, when the Census Bureau hired 148,000 workers, as of March 21, the Census has 40,354 workers.

“We are really stressed right now,” David Lee, Vice Chair of the Census Information Centers Steering Committee, told CNN. “We are very behind in hiring, having difficulty hiring staff and outreach workers. Some anecdotally attribute that to fear of exposure to the virus.”

People have been encouraged to respond online but due to some lacking internet access and “distrust among immigrants of the Trump administration,” that option isn’t always feasible, according to The Guardian.

Getting an inaccurate count of the U.S. population could impact how the government allocates federal funds, The Guardian reported. The census is used to determine the number of representatives in the U.S. House and how political district lines are drawn for the next decade.

The Census Bureau is aiming to hire 500,000 people by late May to reach out to people who haven’t yet filled out the census, according to USA Today. Census job fairs and events have already been canceled and officials are encouraging people to stay at home and respond online.

This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 11:34 AM with the headline "It’s Census Day. How will coronavirus affect the 2020 US population count?."