PIERCE COUNTY

CLOSE-UP!

Everyone in Pierce County got an important piece of mail in March. If you didn’t respond to that, you got a reminder.

Now, Ellsworth’s Jack Hines – who is overseeing the Pierce County participation in the United States Census – is giving you another one.

“People need to mail that in. It’s important for all of us,” he said.

Hines has put together a crew of census takers to start calling and visiting homes as soon as the COVID-19 situation allows for it, but that’s pretty much on hold for now. That doesn’t mean, however, that the United States Census is still going on as planned. It just means it’s moving a little slower than it was scheduled.

“We’re not supposed to do anything yet as far as that’s concerned,” said Hines. “We do need a few more census takers for when we do need to get out and talk to people. It’s a great part-time job. It pays well, and it’s only for about three months.”

The census gathering jobs pay $22/hour. You can call Hines if you’re interested at 715-307-1274.

Hines said Wisconsin is the number one state in the nation in returning census forms, and typically Pierce County is among the best in the state on making sure it’s counted.

“We’ve gotten back 56 percent of the forms in Wisconsin, which is pretty good to start with,” he said. “I don’t know exactly how this is going to play out now with this virus, how long it’s going to take. Normally, they’d be calling people to go out by now. People that do not respond, they send that information to census takers, and they give them a call or go see them.”

Census information is vital to the county, all municipalities and schools. “The number of people we have determines how much federal aid we will be getting. It also determines how much representation we have in Congress,” said Hines. “I definitely encourage people to get that mailed back if they haven’t yet. Everybody matters. This happens only once ever 10 years.”