The Census Project Blog

by Terri Ann Lowenthal

“The decennial census is a shared national undertaking. [It] will soon be up to the public to fulfill its civic responsibility to return the questionnaires in a timely fashion.” (Robert Goldenkoff, director of strategic issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office, in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, 2/22/10.)

It’s March and the 2010 census is starting in earnest. (Hats off, though, to the Native Alaskans who set a good example by cooperating with census takers before heading out of their villages for seasonal hunting and fishing.)

Census workers are fanning out across rural areas and other communities (such as areas recovering from natural disasters and some urban high rises without individual mail boxes) where direct mail service is spotty or nonexistent. As we learned last week in Census 101, this is the Update/Leave operation: Enumerators update the address list and census maps as they hand deliver census forms to each housing unit. The 12 million households in this universe, covering roughly nine percent of the population, should fill out and mail back their questionnaires as soon as possible, to get the “participation rate” ball rolling.

Everyone else, be patient! Most of you will get a letter next week signed by Census Director Robert Groves himself, followed by the questionnaire a week later. And then … well, let me quote the man of the hour (that would be Dr. Groves): “Our biggest risk is the uncertainty presented by the American public’s response to the census. We really need your help in encouraging and motivating everyone … to participate.” (Testimony (PDF) before the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security, 2/23/10)

People, let me put this in plain English. It’s time to step up to the plate and do what the Constitution envisions and the law requires: Answer those silly ten questions, seal the envelope, and mail it off. You’re done for another decade.

And the ever-growing list of cynics? Well, let’s review the latest: Andy Rooney, as usual, didn’t do his homework before raising doubts about why the census asks for certain information, like your telephone number. (There goes the historic tendency to overcount older Americans.) Citizens Against Government Waste awarded “Porker of the Month” honors to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Dr. Groves for “fail[ing] to oversee and control [the cost] of the census,” even though they took office at the tail end of a decade-long planning process. (Now the Census Bureau has to spend millions in targeted promotion to conservatives, to overcome this sort of uninformed nonsense.) Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) lamented the Super Bowl ad’s failure to speak to harder-to-count minorities. (Disapproval makes strange bedfellows, and that ad most certainly wasn’t part of the targeted campaign.)

But here’s the thing: There will be a census no matter who threatens to boycott and who rails against perceived government overreaching (what’s up with all the pseudo-constitutional scholars who fancy themselves as the “true” Americans?) and who criticizes the communications campaign for spending too much or not spending enough (depending on your perspective). And the outcome will determine who gets their fair share of political influence and economic resources for the next ten years, whether you like it or not.

There may be plenty to second-guess in an activity this large and complex, and there are things I wish the Census Bureau had done better or differently. But as Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE), chairman of the oversight subcommittee, said at a hearing last week, “Problems are to be expected.” What’s “vitally important,” he said, is that “we do the necessary hard work now.” That means it’s time for everyone to stand up and be counted.