That money goes toward everything from new highways to foster-care payments to health care for the poor. New Jersey has not tabulated how much money it gets from the federal government based on census data, said Fran Rappa, a spokesman for the state Treasury Department. And municipalities, on the prowl for new and sustained federal and state grants, will be using the numbers to bolster arguments as to why they, and not necessarily their neighbors, are due more money. Municipal and county planners will use the money to plan roads, bridges, and new sewer lines. The use of census data doesn't stop at the public sector.
Business is interested, too.
The Census Bureau's population count, together with future tabulations of household income, will be used to help determine when and where in Monmouth and Ocean counties The Home Depot, for example, opens new stores. The United State government has conducted a decennial census since 1790. It is the longest continuous scientific project in the country, according to the Census Bureau. It also is the largest federal government operation in peacetime, with close to 1 million people employed by the U.S. Census Bureau in the past three years. And the count is bound to shake up the status quo.