ze. And then the local jurisdictions, whether, say a city, would redraw their districts so they’re the same size.
I live in Fairfax County, which has over a million people, and after every census they redraw their supervisory districts, is what they call them, so they’re all the same – have the same number of people.
Now, this census population data, as well as other census data, are also used to distribute federal funds. As a matter of fact, over $400 billion a year is distributed on the basis of census data and also other data that we collect, so that is a key use. And that gives each locality an incentive to make sure all this – all their residents are counted, because the more they have, the more money they will get. So that we get a lot of cooperation from the localities because of that incentive that’s built into the – in effect, built into the census.
Now, this is – because it’s in the Constitution, the Congress did make the census mandatory. Everybody in the United States, including yourselves, even if you’re from a foreign country if you live here, usually live or stay here, you are required to fill out the census form. We actually do make an exception for ambassadors who live in the foreign territory of the embassy. They – it’s optional for them because that’s actually not United States land. But everybody else who lives or stays here most of the time is required to fill out the census.
Now, we – because everybody’s required, and there is some personal information – it’s not a very complicated questionnaire. It’s only 10 questions. But we do have age, sex, race, date of birth, that sort of thing, name. We do go to very extreme lengths to maintain the confidentiality of these data. They’re only collected for statistical purposes. Every person who works with the Census Bureau who sees the data, including the enumerators who are out there, temporary employees, are sworn for life to protect the confidentiality of these data. And they could be subject to a fine of up to $250,000, U.S. dollars, if they violate the law. And we do protect these individual responses, put out basically just tables, just tabulations, and not even the Patriot Act can override these protections.
We do share the data with the National Archives and they keep them confidential as well. They have to be sworn Census agents, the people who see these data, and they can release them to the public after 72 years. And that is a big basis for a lot of genealogical research in the United States, tracing family trees and that sort of thing. So we do take that very seriously.
This is really the largest peacetime activity, domestic activity, the federal government undertakes, and it’s really not just now. It takes roughly 14 years from the time we start planning until the time we finish releasing the data. So for example, I’ve already starting working on our 2020 census. As a matter of fact, I started in 2008 working on our 2020 census, and we’re well along in planning that census.
The idea of the census is to count every person living in the United States on April 1, 2010, citizens and non-citizens. We estimate there will be about 309 million people counted in roughly 134 million housing units. It covers all 50 states, the District of Columbia. It covers Puerto Rico. It also covers the U.S. territories, which are the island areas of the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and Guam. They all have their censuses as well that we do at this time.
The key changes in the 2010 Census from before – we have what we’re calling a short form-only census this time. There are only 10 questions for the first person, seven questions for everybody else. We estimate the average household will take only about 10 minutes to fill out the questionnaire. It’s really the shortest census form since 1790, which I think had seven questions.
We used handheld computers equipped with GPS, global positioning system, for a nationwide address canvassing. About a year ago, in April through July of 2009, we sent about 140,000 people out to walk or drive every stre