That said, for some reason they're really talking up the census this year (and I've seen Censuses since 1970). I'm not sure. I do know it's 20 hours a week at $9.75 an hour. I think it's because it's helped keep unemployment numbers down (Census workers have reduced unemployment rates by 0.2%, keeping it out of double-digits). Personally, I don't look at it as a "full-time" employment job, but it IS Gubmint work so I get to rest.
One figure commonly thrown about is that for every person counted in the census, the local government receives $1000. The Democrats have long maintained that poor and urban areas are historically undercounted, especially among immigrants, and even more so among illegal immigrants. This is the main reason that the Community-Organizer-in-Chief is pushing the census.
Reapportionment is another reason. Urban cores are losing population and therefore Congressional representation. They are trying to limit their losses. They are even going so far as to claim that inmates of prisons should not be counted as residents of the county where the prison is located (more and more of these are in rural areas), but rather as a part of the community from whence they came, mostly urban ghettos. The grounds for this is that are merely temporarily visiting the prisons where incarcerated and are really homies at heart. Some are there for 900 years, but I guess that's still temporary in their eyes.