The Census Project Blog

by Martha Farnsworth Riche
The author is a former director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

How people are feeling about government always plays a part in the success of the census—even George Washington noted it when he reported the 1790 census results. If the media is correct in reporting that Americans are more than unusually unhappy with government, fewer people might cooperate with the 2010 census. This will drive up costs and lower the quality of the results, since the Census Bureau is obliged to count everyone.

In 2000, a census-taker came to my door to ask me about people down the block who hadn’t returned their form, or answered the door. That cost the taxpayer extra money, and the information I gave wasn’t helpful. If other neighbors weren’t more helpful, eventually the census computer “imputed” the characteristics of another household in our neighborhood. In short, the Census Bureau will come up with data for every housing unit on its address list, but it can cost more and describe less than if the people who live there participate willingly.

When you add such circumstances to the difficulties already present in counting some neighborhoods or communities, census success becomes less likely. And data for addressing a wide range of concerns—not just voting, the raison d’être of the census, but also jobs, health, education, and so on—become less reliable for small population groups and communities.

There is one tried and true way to address these concerns: with effective partnerships. My mantra in talking to people about the 2000 census plan was, “We don’t want to do it for you; we don’t want to do it to you; we want to do it with you.” The Bureau delivered on this promise by setting up over 90,000 partnerships across the nation.

This wasn’t easy, and it caused a lot of angst at the Bureau. There’s good reason government employees generally avoid involving the public with their work. Not every one observes appropriate boundaries or standards of behavior, and transgressions come back to harass the agency involved. But the Census Bureau recognizes that community groups have local knowledge and credibility that no Federal agency can provide.

If the signals of greater-than-usual public unease are correct, the 2010 census is going to require even more from partners. The Census Bureau will do a good job of taking the census. But at the margin, the ultimate success of the census will depend on partners not just telling their communities that it’s important to answer the census, and to help take the census, but also actively countering those who advocate non-participation for their own purposes, no matter how well intentioned.