On April 1, census employees around the country – like this one - will take begin the federal roll call.

Dave Schechter
CNN Senior National Editor

There are a lot of reasons you should care about the U.S. Census.

It’s your tax dollars at work, some 300 billion of them allocated based on Census data.

It’s your voice in Congress, as House seats are apportioned based on Census data.

It’s your voice locally, as Census data is used to draw legislative districts and school boundaries.

For the next year, it may appear that the Census Bureau is stalking you.

Okay, maybe stalking is too strong a term for a branch of the government, but the Census Bureau wants to make sure everyone understands the importance of the Census.

April 1, 2010, is the day the federal government will obey the Constitution and attempt to count every American.

So, a year in advance, the Census Bureau is starting its campaign to convince Americans to fill out that form when the time comes.

Good luck. The first time the Census was taken was 1790 by federal agents on horseback. The population then was counted at 3.9 million people. In 2000, the Census recorded more than 281 million Americans. As of this writing the Census estimates the population at 306 million.

Part one of the Census is underway, verifying addresses, a task made easier by the use of hand-held computers with GPS (global positioning satellite) capabilities but also made more complicated by the record numbers of foreclosed homes and displaced residents; the spike in homeless, particularly for families, and people on the move in search of work.

The government takes this stuff seriously. You can be fined $100 for refusing to answer the Census and $500 for deliberately providing false information.

It won’t take you long to respond. The 2010 Census will be short-form only. It will be mailed in mid-March, preparing for April 1, 2010 – Census Day. The head of household will be asked to list the people living there by sex, age, date of birth, race, ethnicity, the relationship of people in the household and how long they’ve lived there.

More detailed information on other subjects – the numbers demographers love to crunch, ranging from income to languages spoken at home – is gathered by the American Community Survey, done annually with a much smaller sample.

It will cost roughly $14 billion to conduct the Census. That includes the hiring of 1.4 million Census workers, about 400,000 this spring and the other million next year.  In a slumping economy, these jobs may be part-time, but they pay wages anywhere from $8-$26 an hour, depending on duties and location.

The Census Bureau is spending $250 million to get its message across, using traditional media, social media and particularly ethnic media. "A year from not, the populace will have seen and heard more ads in national and local media than in any prior census," the Census Bureau's acting director, Thomas Mesenbourg, told a House subcommittee hearing.

The Census wants to convince immigrant communities – particularly Latinos – that they can participate in the Census without worrying that the information will be turned over to immigration authorities. In fact, Census workers take a lifetime pledge not to reveal information and face fines and possible imprisonment if they violate that oath. The more the cooperation from racial and ethnic communities, the less the chance of undercounts that then affect how tax dollars are divided.

A test of bi-lingual Census forms was conducted last year in counties in North Carolina and California that have experienced rapid increases in their Latino populations. The 2000 census counted more than 35 million Hispanics (the official term used by the U.S. government). Latino groups estimate that several million more were missed. In 2007, the most recent year available, the Latino population was estimated almost 45 million. The 2010 Census asks if the respondent is Hispanic, Latino or of Spanish origin, separate from the question asking about race.

In this increasingly multi-cultural America, the Census allows for checking more than one box under race. Still, objections remain, including Iranians who don’t consider themselves Middle-Easterners and African immigrants uncomfortable describing themselves as black.

The gay community has its own complaint; namely, that according to the Census it doesn’t exist.

The Census Bureau, in a statement released March 10, reiterated that because the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) does not recognize same-sex unions sanctioned by states, census takers will mark same-sex couples who live together as "unmarried partners." "This is all about the numbers," bureau spokesperson Cynthia Endo said. "This is not about lifestyle or anything else."

Same-sex couples with no children will not be classified as families. Same-sex couples raising children won’t be classified as families. The Census will list them as being attached to one of the adults.

That means my friends M & D, two men raising two adopted boys, don’t exist as a family. Neither do J and S, raising a daughter J adopted before meeting S. B and M, partners for many years, they’ll be listed as unrelated men who happen to share a house.

When it comes to the Census question about the relationship between people in a household, the Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California-Los Angeles law school, recommends that gay and lesbian couples designate one partner as the “husband” or “wife” or as an “unmarried partner.”

"I am a sociologist and census data is very important to our existence, and I don't like it when they leave things out, it causes an undercount," says Sharon Raphael, 67, who teaches gerontology at Cal State-Dominguez Hills told the Long Beach, Calif., Press-Telegram. "Certain numbers of us are not out, and when they hide us under these general descriptions ... it just makes us more invisible."