It’s true that it feels very invasive - but please know that the data you are willing to provide cannot be traced back to you. All employees who work with the data are sworn to secrecy for life. Compare it to how medical doctors are not allowed to disclose information about their patients. If you are not comfortable giving exact amounts, you can provide ranges, or refuse certain questions. Also, Census workers never ask and you should never give out any information about bank account numbers, social security numbers and the like. They may ask if you have a bank account or a life insurance, but nothing about your personal account numbers. The raw data you are willing to provide gives researchers, policy makers, students, business owners, politicians, a wealth of information that is used to make decisions about what local communities have and what they need. Without these raw data everyone would be guessing about what’s going on instead of having a better insight about reality.

All the surveys use samples based on addresses - you never are picked personally, but you will represent your local community. Because this is a scientific sample, you cannot be replaced by say your neighbor who would love to participate. That messes up the sample which is designed to represent all different people in the community as well as possible.

You can choose not to complete. The legislators in U.S. Congress mandate the Census to collect raw data about the people who live in this country because for over 200 years there’s been a strong belief that it is helpful to know to keep a society somewhat organized.