40 percent of Hawaii residents fail to mail census forms

Hundreds of nonprofit partners over the past few months have joined a massive effort by local U.S. Census Bureau offices to overcome Hawaii's low mail-back rate for census forms by reaching out to traditionally hard-to-count areas and populations, according to an April 11 article in the Honolulu Advertiser.

With only a few weeks to go before the mail-back deadline, it appeared census takers would have to count hundreds of thousands of Hawaii residents the hard way. To do so, starting April 11 an army of 3,300 enumerators, who are paid $17 per hour with reimbursements for mileage, will deploy to count noses. Each new enumerator will receive about 40 hours of paid training before they are sent out.

Given the poor Hawaii response rate and the need for enumerators often to have to visit a residence five or six times before making contact, the process will be expensive -- particularly on the neighbor islands, where residences can be far apart or hard to locate, adding to the cost.

Census officials say the effort is necessary. They estimate that each person who is not counted represents a loss of $1,200 to $2,500 in federal funds each year to the state.

The count will continue through August. In addition to locating non-respondents, workers will call residences that have returned a census questionnaire to clarify responses given regarding the number of individuals living at the address. The bureau says it will only call if there is a question about such responses.