Dabo Swinney, Dawn Staley, Darius Rucker star in video asking SC to fill out census
With South Carolina lagging near the bottom portion of the country in self-reporting for the 2020 U.S. Census, officials are launching a star-studded campaign to encourage residents to fill out their census forms, Lt. Gen. Pamela Evette announced Wednesday.
The “Count Me In” video that kicked off the campaign features Grammy-winning musician and Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker, Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and others, listing off the programs impacted by census results.
Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott make appearances as well, as do U.S. Reps. Tom Rice and Jeff Duncan.
Roughly two months since the U.S. Census Bureau began sending out detailed information on how to respond to the census online, by phone or by mail, South Carolina ranks 39th in the country, with a response rate of 53.8%.
“We are 39th in self reporting, which is not good at all,” Evette said. “We want to make sure that everybody understands why the census is so important .... For every person that files for the census, the state gets about $3,000. If you take 100 people that don’t do their census and turn it in, over 10 years, the state loses out on $3 million. That’s a lot of money and that’s only with 100 people.”
Evette noted that 2020 marks the first time the census can be filled out online — as of Tuesday, South Carolina has had a 40.3% internet response rate, 40th in the country.
In order to boost those numbers, Evette said the government has partnered with faith leaders in communities to encourage people, especially older residents, to fill out their forms and potentially get help doing so online.
Rural areas, which often lack access to high-speed internet, often have a harder time submitting information, as census forms are not sent to P.O. boxes. Allendale, Hampton and Dillon counties all have self-reporting rates under 40% and are the lowest in the state.
On top of it all, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the start of the awareness campaign and has stopped workers from knocking on doors, officials said.
“We’ve talked a lot about it with broadband,” Evette said. “Broadband and the grants that come from the federal government are completely tied to the census. Because the kickoff was April 1 and we were under the COVID-19 pandemic, we didn’t kick it off. So we’ve been counting on our media partners to make sure that you’re getting this message.”
Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, though, the census hasn’t been generating many headlines recently.
“It’s kinda getting drowned out in the COVID-19, everything that’s going on, so we really need to bring that upfront or it’s a price we’ll pay for the next 10 years,” Evette said.
Evette also stressed Wednesday that two issues are interconnected, given how federal dollars directed in response to the crisis are dictated by the last census.
“The monies that we received from the federal government are directly tied to census that happened in 2010. And per the Census Bureau, South Carolina was upwards of 20% under-counted,” she said. “So it is playing a part in what we’re dealing with right now. We can’t fix what’s happened in the past, but we can definitely do better moving forward.”
