NYC Launches Neighborhood Census Competition To Improve Response

NEW YORK CITY – The New York City Census is launching a contest to help mobilize New Yorkers to respond to the 2020 Census.

The NYC "Census Subway Series" and "NYC Counts" contest were launched in response to President Donald Trump's move to cut the census short by one month.

The Census Subway Series is a five-week challenge in which two neighborhoods from different boroughs will compete against each other to see which posts the largest gains in self-response rate on the Census over the course of a week.

The first two neighborhoods to compete are Jamaica, Queens, which currently has a self-response rate of 49.4 percent; and Canarsie, Brooklyn, which currently has a self-response rate of 47.9 percent.

Neighborhood competitions will be determined on a weekly basis based on the self-response rates of certain neighborhoods.

Residents of the competing neighborhoods, as well as any New Yorker who completes the census during the next five weeks, may be eligible to win prizes from Seamless, Lyft, and MoMa as part of the contest. Prizes include a $1,000 gift card from Seamless, a $50 Lyft credit voucher and annual CitiBike membership, and an annual membership to The Museum of Modern Art and MoMa PS1.

New Yorkers must take a photo of their census completion confirmation page and upload it to the city's website to enter. The last day to enter is Sept. 21.

The census determines how the federal government distributes nearly $1.5 trillion every year to states and cities for education, housing, transportation, health care and more.

The census also determines the number of seats New York state has in Congress. If New York does not achieve a complete and accurate count in this year's census the state could lose up to two congressional seats and representation in Albany.

The census is 10 simple questions that take less than 10 minutes to complete. All New Yorkers can easily self-respond now online at my2020census.gov or by phone at 1-844-330-2020. The census does not ask about immigration, citizenship, criminal history, or income.