State, local, and federal lawmakers use statistics from the once-a-decade census to determine how hundreds of billions in federal funds will be allocated every year for the next 10 years for critical public services and programs such as Water and Waste Disposal for Rural Communities, Rural Business Development Grants, and Rural Housing Preservation Grants. Responses to the census also determine how many seats a state gets in Congress.
The Census Bureau recently published a story explaining the importance of counting rural and remote populations, which may be helpful for residents in Sierra to understand why some of your surrounding communities will be one of the first to be counted in the 2020 Census this spring.