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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Maine's Census Response Rate Among Lowest

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Thursday, August 13, 2020   

AUGUSTA, Maine -- Maine has one of the lowest census response rates in the country, according to the latest Census Bureau figures.

Deborah Weinstein, executive director for the Coalition on Human Needs, said Maine could lose a lot of federal funding in education, health and other services because of it.

Weinstein highlighted the challenges of collecting census data in Maine.

"It takes time to reach people in rural areas, to reach children, low-income people, immigrants," Weinstein explained. "They're the ones who are missed most often."

The Census Bureau recently announced it is shortening its field-data collection deadline by a month, to September 30. It says it's doing so to meet a December 31 legal deadline for producing state population counts.

But there are calls to include additional census funding and to extend the deadline in a coronavirus relief package.

Weinstein contended the Census Bureau's new deadline is a political move.

"The Trump administration wants to cut the census count short even though the census professional staff say they need more time," Weinstein said. "Sen. (Susan) Collins should insist that Maine doesn't lose out on millions of dollars."

Weinstein explained that for every child missed in the census, for example, Maine loses out on about $1,700 dollars each year in education money. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has not expressed a position on including Census Bureau assistance in a new stimulus bill.

Disclosure: Coalition on Human Needs contributes to our fund for reporting on Budget Policy & Priorities, Census, Children's Issues, Poverty Issues. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


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