On March 4, there was an excellent letter in the paper about the census. Here is some additional important information. The U.S. Census for 2020 is not the town of Amherst Census that you received a few weeks ago. They differ and both need filling out.

The Town Census is for keeping your voter status active, for a street listing and for how many children you have. The U.S. census that you will be receive starting March 12 is for counting everybody in the country. Every single person, citizen or not, living in any residence — house or apartment and/or staying with the renter or owner needs to be counted.

Shockingly, adults often leave young children off the census. The last census (10 years ago) missed one out of every 10 young children — more than two million children between birth and age 4! This meant less funding for the community’s schools over the whole 10-year period. And a baby now will be a 10 by the time of the next census.

That child could have to attend schools in poorer condition or with fewer teachers than desirable because they were not counted. On average, school districts lost $1,695 per year for every child they missed in the last census.

Programs other than schools will also suffer for each child not counted. Over 300 federal programs use census data to determine funds going to state and local governments. These programs cover other necessities such as child care, children’s health insurance, roads and highways, school meals programs, housing assistance, and a variety of other areas.

Why are children sometimes omitted from the census count? Perhaps the person who receives the census is a harried single parent rushing to complete the form, perhaps they do not understand why children should be counted, perhaps they speak another language, perhaps they are an immigrant who is worried that they might be endangered by filling out the form, perhaps the child is living with a grandparent who is uncertain as to whether they should count them since they are not the child’s parent. Those are just a few of the reasons.

Much more information can be found at countallkids.org/. Amherst is a particularly difficult city or town to get everyone counted — the ninth hardest in Massachusetts. We will lose $2,372 for each person we don’t count. If you know someone who would benefit from understanding that everyone, child or adult, needs counting, please share this letter with them.

Diana Stein

Amherst

The writer is a member of the League of Women Voters in Amherst.