New York City has one of the lowest Census participation rates in the country so far this year, and over the weekend NPR offered this rather irritating story by way of explanation. Turns out the unique combination of jaded hipsters and an isolated Hasidic community in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood is dragging down mail-in rates for the entire city: Only about 30 percent of Williamsburg has mailed their Census forms back, compared to 65 percent nationwide. Listen to the story for head scratching quotes from Brooklyn record store denizens about how they might be more apt to fill out the form if they thought it actually affected their lives, or if the government paid them $5 to do it.

So how’s the District doing? As of Monday, April 12, we’re sitting at 61 percent. That’s 4 percentage points behind the rest of the country, and even farther behind our nearest neighbors — Virginia has an impressive 69 percent rate of return as of today, while Maryland is at 67 percent.

Over the weekend we spotted a number of “complete and return” initiatives across the city. DCist HQ even found a glossy, Census-themed wall poster in our mailbox from the folks at DC Counts. But is all that effort paying off?

Remember, you can track mail-in participation rates via this interactive map from Census 2010.