I’ve been getting increasingly urgent messages from the U.S. Census Bureau, “encouraging” me to encourage FM&T readers and visitors to cooperate with their effort by responding to census forms that will be delivered in December.

Sometime next month, 200,000 manufacturers, among more than 4 million U.S. businesses in total, will be delivered forms to complete and return to the Bureau, as it conducts the 2007 Economic Census. The Census Bureau is a federal agency, a part of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. And, even though completing and returning the census forms is a good idea and part of a larger, important enterprise, it’s also a legal obligation.

Specifically, responses to the questionnaire are required by law to be returned by February 12, 2008, as indicated by Title 13, U.S. Code.

In any case, there are more than 500 different versions of the questionnaire, tailored to different industries and business sizes. Generally, the forms inquire about basic facts — employment numbers, payroll, values of goods produced, and so forth. Electronic reporting is available, as should be expected nowadays.

All these details and obligations aside, the Census is an invaluable data set that benefits everyone by establishing the essential facts that define us as individuals, groups, enterprises, and as a nation. It serves as the reference on trade and tax issues, functions as an index for researchers, and supplies the sort of information most industries — metalcasting, to be sure — cannot fund and maintain on their own.

So, I feel I’m doing my duty, to you, to all of us, by encouraging you to respond when the form arrives at your business.

If you want more, and more comprehensive, information about the upcoming business census, visit the site that Commerce has established. It’s full of stats and background details that will make the case even better.