The year-round population of Martha’s Vineyard swelled by 25 per cent in the past 10 years, topping 20,000 people last year, according to 2020 U.S. Census figures released Thursday.
Island census organizers are ramping up outreach efforts to boost participation, after a counting process hamstrung by funding cuts and concern about low response rates.
If it seems the inventory of hair color products on Island drugstore and supermarket shelves is growing larger every year - well, it probably is. New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau this week shows that gray hair is the increasingly predominant theme in Dukes County, and for that matter all over Massachusetts, as the population grows older and the number of households with children begins to dwindle.
A battered and idling Island workforce may get some relief in the coming weeks: the 2010 U.S. Census has begun aggressively recruiting census workers for the decennial inventory of the American people. Census officials expect to hire hundreds of Islanders for the house-by-house head count here.
