The city of Meridian had the highest response rate to the U.S. Census among cities west of the Mississippi River. Idaho also posted a higher response rate to census mail-in questionnaires than the U.S. average.
Meridian placed 34th in the U.S. among cities with 50,000 people or more, with an 83 percent response rate. Census officials will give Meridian Mayor Tammy de Weerd a plaque Wednesday honoring its residents’ efforts.
Idaho’s 75 percent response rate is higher than the national 72 percent average. It also exceeded the response rates of all its neighboring states, and matched its efforts for the 2000 census.
Census door-knocking operations, to gather information for people who did not mail-in their census questionnaires, ended in July. Those responses aren’t included in the response rate statistics.
Jefferson County, which includes the city of Rigby, had the highest county response rate in the state at 83 percent, while Valley County, which includes McCall, had the lowest rate at 31 percent.
Several small towns in Idaho had response rates of higher than 90 percent. Those towns include Acequia, Clifton, and Deary. Island Park, near the Wyoming border, had an 11 percent response rate.
Upper Midwest states, including Wisconsin and Minnesota, had the highest census response rates across the country. Only seven of the top 50 cities weren’t from one of six neighboring states in the Midwest.
