Category Archives: Congressional Oversight

Lessons from North of the Border: Why a Voluntary ACS Could Wipe Some States Off the Map

Posted on May 17, 2013 | 6 Comments

by Terri Ann LowenthalTerri Ann Lowenthal

What if we took a survey and no one answered? Or, to be more realistic, only two-thirds of us did?

That’s what happened north of the border recently. The Canadian Parliament decided to do away with the nation’s mandatory long-form survey and replace it with the voluntary National Household Survey (NHS). Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported the results of the first NHS, conducted in 2011, this week. Instead of the 94 percent response rate achieved with the 2006 mandatory long form, only 68 percent of households returned the voluntary survey. Instead of having reliable data for 97 percent of the country, only three-quarters of Canada’s localities will have a picture of their socio-economic conditions.

In abolishing the mandatory survey, conservatives decried the burden on Canadians of revealing “personal” information to the government. How ironic, then, that in order to make up for projected falling response rates, StatCan increased the number of households that received the survey, from one in five to one in three. That’s a 65 percent jump!

Now that we’ve recovered from the initial shock of a proposal (H.R. 1638) to axe just about everything the Census Bureau does, legislation to make American Community Survey (ACS) response optional might seem relatively tame, if not harmless. Think again, census stakeholders.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), citing “big government at its worst,” reintroduced a bill (H.R. 1078) to let people ‘just say no’ to all or part of the survey. (See my March 20, 2013, post.) A 2003 field test of a voluntary ACS, which Congress demanded, gave a glimpse of the stiff consequences of such a significant change in methodology. Response rates would plummet, especially for traditionally hard-to-measure population groups, and costs would skyrocket (by at least 30 percent), as the Census Bureau scrambles to ensure enough response to produce accurate data for towns, small counties, rural communities, neighborhoods and smaller population groups such as veterans, people with disabilities and ethnic subgroups. The Canadian experience, the first of its kind to our knowledge, bears this out.

Congress doesn’t seem in the mood to allocate more money for good data; the Census Bureau already is reeling from an 11 percent budget cut this year (13 percent if you count the $18 million dip into the Working Capital Fund). The bureau might have to follow StatCan’s lead and put a warning on all small-area data estimates: Use at your own risk due to high non-response error. Translation: The data are flawed because some population groups are less likely to respond than others and therefore skew the representation of the sample.

More likely, we might not see any data for small areas because the bureau won’t have the money to compensate for plummeting response rates by increasing the sample size (that’s sampling error, folks) like StatCan did. Forty-one percent of U.S. counties are home to less than 20,000 people; even with a mandatory ACS, the Census Bureau must aggregate data over five years to accumulate enough responses to yield statistically valid estimates for these areas.

New York? Most counties are larger, although we’d lose information about communities and neighborhoods within counties, making it difficult for local governments and businesses to target services and investment dollars. But bye-bye to most of Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas, Idaho and Iowa. You can wipe half of Texas, Nevada, Wyoming and Utah, much of Colorado, Missouri, Georgia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas and Minnesota, and not insignificant portions of other states off the map. No data for 95 percent of American Indian reservations and Alaska Native areas, most elementary school districts, and more than half of secondary school districts. How is anyone supposed to make rational decisions without all of this local information?

Meanwhile, joining the list of conservative voices that appreciates the value of objective, reliable data to support decision-making is The Weekly Standard. A May 20 article calls the ACS “one of the most robust and important tools we have for measuring and understanding American trends.” Ironically, The Weekly Standard admonished the Census Bureau for deciding, because ACS content is now a zero sum game, to drop the question on how many times a person has been married, to make room for questions on use of health care subsidies and premiums that will help policymakers assess the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act (okay, Obamacare).

Raise your hand if you remember what happened the last time the Census Bureau tried to mess with a census question on marriage? Well, before the 2000 count — when the census long form still ruled the data world — the bureau thought it might streamline the short form that everyone received, by shifting a question on marital status to the sample (or long) form. You would have thought someone proposed abolishing Mother’s Day! Very conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), incensed at the inference that marriage was no longer a “sacred institution” — and who had been complaining for years that the census form was too long — proposed an amendment (to the Transportation appropriations bill, 106th Congress) in support of keeping the question on the short form.

So, we have some conservatives railing against the public burden of so many nosy questions, and others urging the government to keep asking how many times you’ve been married. While Sen. Helms and conservative colleagues (e.g. John Ashcroft, Sam Brownback) were fighting to save the marriage question, the same Senate went on record urging Americans to answer only the long form questions they liked in the 2000 census. Yes, I feel a census headache coming on…!!

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Posted in American Community Survey, Congressional Oversight

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Where Have I Heard This Before? (or, History Repeats Itself)

Posted on May 7, 2013 | 4 Comments

by Terri Ann LowenthalTerri Ann Lowenthal

So where do we go from here, census stakeholders? Let’s take stock.

As I reported in my last blog post, nearly a dozen House members think it’s a good idea to do away with every survey and census — except the once-a-decade population count — the U.S. Census Bureau conducts. With a few legislative votes and the stroke of a president’s pen, they would leave the world’s greatest democracy with virtually no useful information on which to base prudent decisions and with which to hold elected officials (like themselves) accountable.

Some observers are understandably shocked — shocked! — at the absurdity of such a proposal. Whatever could the proponents be thinking?

According to a press release, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), is acting on behalf the many annoyed constituents who believe the surveys are “invasive.” Many? Really??? Given the small sample size of non-census surveys, only a tiny fraction of the congressman’s constituents would ever be asked to fill one out. While the congressman acknowledges the need for “some” economic data, he is confident there are other ways to gather it that don’t involve “harassing people” or “invading their privacy.” “Americans are tired of too much government meddling in their daily lives,” Rep. Duncan assures us. (Except, I’m sure, when potholes need filling, a doctor’s visit is paid for through Medicare or Medicaid, classrooms are too crowded, or they really would like a new senior center close to public transportation.)

This all sounds vaguely familiar. In fact, it sounds like an effort to up-end the census (and related American Community Survey, which used to be the census long form)… circa 1970.

You see, that’s when a group of young conservatives, in a mailing to (presumably) other conservatives, wrote: “The citizen’s right of privacy is directly violated when the federal government attempts to force us to answer questions that are none of the government’s business… The point is not what questions are being asked,” the authors declared, “but that a federal agency dares to institute a process that will pry into the core of our individual lives.” They also organized anti-census demonstrations at federal buildings.

And they might have stirred every limited-government soul to dodge the census, except that one very notable conservative decided to call their bluff. Renowned columnist James J. Kilpatrick, himself a recipient of the anti-census diatribe, countered the “privacy” argument in an op-ed (Washington Evening Star, 2/22/70; syndicated elsewhere):

“Is it true that such information is ‘none of the government’s business?’ On the contrary, such information is of the first importance to government. How else can public policies be fashioned wisely? Where should schools be built, and water lines laid, and parks established? How many people will be using what highways and airports when? The economic and demographic information coming from confidential Census reports… is vital to every public and private undertaking that rests upon a knowledge of what our country is.”

There’s something else going on here aside from vague concerns about “privacy.” In the required “Statement of Constitutional Authority,” here’s what Rep. Duncan submitted in support of H.R. 1638:

“Article I Section 2 notes the need for an Enumeration of the people necessary for the apportionment of Congressional districts. That is the true purpose of the Census Bureau. This legislation seeks to return the Census Bureau to the Constitutional intent of the Founding Fathers by eliminating non-Constitutional additional enumerations that the Bureau undertakes today.”

So there we have it. The sponsors believe that the federal government does not have the authority to gather information from the people in order to produce statistics that guide fiscal and social policy-making and the allocation of government resources. Funny, this also rings a bell; the 1970 protesters labeled the census a “violat[ion] [of] our rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution.”

Not so, states’ rights advocate Kilpatrick shot back. Not only do legislators have broad authority with regard to census-taking (i.e. “in such manner as they shall by Law direct”), the columnist said, they have the power to regulate commerce. “Nothing in the Constitution prohibits the Congress from combining its powers in useful ways. Thus a Census question on the houses we own, and the plumbing and heating in them, may not relate narrowly to ‘enumeration,’ but it relates reasonably to commerce — and it scarcely reaches ‘the core of our individual lives’ [quoting the anti-census mailing he received]. The same thing is true of questions relating to our jobs and how we get to them.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Jim, though heaven knows I’ve tried.

Having defended the need for informed decision-making (is there any other worthwhile kind in a democracy?), I fully understand why survey recipients might view the questions as odd, at best, or maybe nonsensical or even intrusive. The Census Bureau has a responsibility, too, to explain clearly the purpose of questions to households fortunate enough (smile) to receive one, as well as to limit follow-up calls and door-knocks to a reasonable number for people who clearly don’t want to be bothered. Kudos to the agency for finally establishing a Respondent Advocate for Household Surveys, to be the ears and voice for people wondering what the heck the government really wants to know (e.g. not when you leave the house, but how many cars are on the road during rush hour!) and advise the Census Bureau on how to make surveys more user-friendly.

Now, if only our elected officials would demonstrate some leadership and help illuminate the need for objective, reliable data, instead of pretending we can live in a society that doesn’t even calculate the unemployment rate!

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Posted in American Community Survey, Congressional Oversight

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What We Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Us (Right?)

Posted on April 23, 2013 | 23 Comments

by Terri Ann LowenthalTerri Ann Lowenthal

Hey, I have an idea!

Let’s stop collecting any information. About our economy. Our standard of living. Our educational progress. The well-being of our veterans and people with disabilities. The condition of our nation’s homes. How well our farmers are doing.

Let’s just live in an information vacuum, blithely ignoring the good and the bad (what you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?), drifting along in a state of blissful know-nothingness. Wouldn’t life be simple?

Okay, I’ll ‘fess up. This is not an original idea. I stole it from sophomore Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC-3), who just introduced a bill (H.R. 1638) to cancel the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), Economic Census, Census of Governments and every other survey the agency conducts, except the once-a-decade population count. Oh, and bye-bye Census of Agriculture (transferred from Census to the Agriculture Department in 1997). Sayonara, adios — no more data.

I think I get where Rep. Duncan is coming from. His biography says he wants to create a new congressional Committee on the Elimination of Nonessential Federal Programs, “with the express purpose of reducing federal outlays.” No data? No way to identify society’s challenges and to allocate federal resources prudently. Mission accomplished.

Cool! Then we might not need congressmen, because just about all of them rely on Census Bureau data to justify their existence. Rep. Duncan’s website offers great “Resources” for businesses, linking to Business USA, a program started by President Obama (yikes!) in 2011. On the Business USA website, I found this nugget on the Twitter feed: “Who Are America’s Job Creators?” Important question, so I went to the blog by the SBA Administrator Karen Mills. Well, wouldn’t you know… there are 28 million small businesses in the U.S.; they create two out of three new jobs and employ half of the country’s workforce. “But when you dive into the data,” Ms. Mills blogs, “you see that not all small businesses are the same.” Whoa, stop reading… can’t continue this important analysis without the data, which presumably comes from the Economic Census (cancelled!) and follow-on surveys (cancelled!).

Rep. Duncan also offers “Guidance and key resources to help eligible grantseekers find information on federal grants, loans, and nonfinancial assistance for projects, as well as on private funding” on his Resources page. 3rd Congressional District businesses, please go no further, because in FY 2008, ACS data guided nearly 70 percent of all federal grants (Brookings Institution report). Scratch those opportunities off your list.

Given the recent tragic events in Boston, it’s probably a safe bet that most lawmakers support funding to bolster state and local resources to combat various threats to peace and safety. Rep. Duncan provides a link on his website to help localities in his district find information on Homeland Security Grants, as well as equally important Assistance to Firefighter grants. Wait, hold up… scratch those programs; both rely on ACS data to determine eligibility. Sorry, local law enforcement officials and first responders; you’ll have to look elsewhere for support.

Under Transportation issues, Rep. Duncan tells us that, “infrastructure is a legitimate government function.” Good, I’m with you so far. The congressman goes on to say he supports legislation to phase out federal involvement in highway and mass transit programs, turning over all responsibility to the states and eliminating “costly federal mandates.” Okay, I don’t necessarily agree, but let’s assume the congressman’s position for a minute. And just how is South Carolina supposed to decide where to allocate its transportation dollars: better roads in Charleston, or Anderson (“The Electric City!”)? Without comparable, high-quality, small-area data (available from only one source: the U.S. Census Bureau), Palmetto lawmakers presumably will be throwing darts at a map (or maybe holding a sweepstakes – YES!). Anderson officials, by the way, really want you to know that the city is a magnet for businesses because it sits on the busy I-85 corridor. Sadly, businesses won’t know where to set up shop, because they rely on ACS and Economic Census data to understand local markets, workforce, commuting patterns and economic activity in prospective new locations.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT-3), original cosponsor of H.R. 1638, good to hear from you again. I applaud your focus on economic recovery (whether or not I agree with your approach); the fiscal plan described on your website clearly lays out the potential problem of deficit and spending in relation to gross domestic product. Wait… we won’t be able to calculate GDP without the quinquennial Economic Census, which provides the baseline data on classes of business enterprises, economic output, producer incomes, investment in assets and other measures of economic activity. (Worse, I’ll be deprived of one of my favorite statutory words: quinquennial!) Seems hard to make the case for one fiscal plan over another without, well, data on the economy. Just sayin’.

Hello, Rep. Steve Southerland II (R-FL-2)! I see you just introduced the “Strengthening Rural Communities Act” (H.R. 1632), directing 3-5 percent of existing Rural Development Essential Communities Facilities money for technical assistance. The bill would “make it easier for rural communities to thrive by providing the technical assistance and project planning they need to strengthen public safety, public health, and public access to upgraded services.” A worthy goal, indeed.

The Agriculture Department administers the Community Facility Grants Program to help very small communities develop “essential” facilities, such as health care and childcare centers. Wait… the program gives priority to low-income rural areas — those with “median household incomes below the higher [sic?] of the poverty line or 60% of the State non-metropolitan median household income.” The only source of that information for rural areas would be the American Community Survey. Sorry, 2nd Congressional District residents; if you want to demonstrate a need for these grants, you might have to stand outside looking poor (because your congressman has cosponsored a bill to eliminate the availability of any data to prove it). (Good thing Marianna, Blountstown and other 2nd District communities have already taken advantage of project planning assistance to build or upgrade water and wastewater projects, according to the congressman’s website. Without the ACS, no more USDA Water and Waste Disposal Loans and Grants, worth $45 million in FY 2008.)

I think I’m getting one of my famous census headaches. But while you join me with a cold pack on your forehead, trying to take this all in, let me say there is a redeeming provision in this otherwise absurd bill. It eliminates the mid-decade census! What? You didn’t know Congress authorized a second census in the year ending in “5?” Well, that’s because Congress never funded one! But obviously lawmakers thought in 1976 that it might be a good thing to have more data about the condition of our communities and well-being of our population. Whatever were they thinking back then?

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The Cycle of Life: Pay Now Or Pay Later

Posted on April 9, 2013 | 1 Comment

By Terri Ann LowenthalTerri Ann Lowenthal

Lifecycle.

Probably makes you contemplate caterpillars and butterflies as spring blossoms start to appear. Or, maybe babies and grandparents; The Lion King.

Me? As usual, I’m wringing my hands about the lifecycle of a census. The planning, preparation, promotion, implementation, numbers crunching. The census lifecycle goes up and it goes down — and then up again — but there is no plateau.

Research and test; develop methodology, operational plans and systems; prepare to launch; execute; tabulate and publish data. Repeat every 10 (the constitutionally required decennial census) or five (the legally required Economic Census and Census of Governments) years.

2020 seems light-years away. But consider the following:

  • A mere seven years from now, census forms will be in the mail (or online or your smartphone or whatever latest gadget I’ll be too old to master).
  • In six years, field workers will be canvassing the nation’s streets, rural roads and remote dirt lanes to be sure all addresses are in the system.
  • Just five years down the road, the Census Bureau will submit the 2020 Census questionnaire to Congress; in four, it will send lawmakers the topics it will include on the form — both submissions are required by law.
  • In three years, Census staff will be mired in final, targeted research and testing of the 2020 design (using the American Community Survey, if lawmakers haven’t pulled the plug, as a primary cost-effective test-bed), operations development, and complex IT systems testing.
  • Next year (that’s 2014, folks), the agency will choose the basic design for the 2020 population count.

My, my… where does the time go?

Here’s the rub: there is little flexibility in the lifecycle; no “down time” to push back decision-making; no “give” in the schedule without risky and often costly delays down the road. Census planning and preparation are up against two immutable deadlilnes: Article I, section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, and a codified census date — April 1, 2020.

There’s no putting it off. There are no do-overs. The Census Bureau has to get it right the first time, on time.

Let’s stipulate that putting the 2020 Census on a 2010 Census design path will cost too much money — $30 billion, according to government agency watchdogs. That’s why major design changes are in the works now. By the end of next year, the Census Bureau must have a framework for 2020 that will allow development and thorough testing of multi-mode response options (but my dad, who will then be 88, will still fill out his paper questionnaire, I promise!), IT platforms to support appropriate use of existing data sources (also known as administrative records), evolving communications strategies to reach a diverse (age, race and ethnicity, type of community, language) population, and streamlined field operations overseen by six, not the previous 12, regional offices. Investing now in this essential planning will yield a census lifecycle cost of $13 – $18 billion, depending on the design chosen. Hey, now we’re talking real savings!

It all seems like a logical means to a rational end, except Congress doesn’t seem to get this lifecycle thing yet. For the current fiscal year (2013), the president had requested $970.4 million for the Census Bureau, including $711.3 million for the account covering the 2020 Census and ACS. The House slashed $75.6 million from the 2020 Census planning pot in its first stab (and I do mean that figuratively and literally) at the Commerce Department funding bill last May, even deciding to axe the ACS altogether. The Senate was more generous in its first go-round, although it couldn’t resist dipping into the Working Capital Fund again to come up with the money. But as Congress struggled (and struggled) to avoid sequestration (unsuccessfully) and then enact a final funding measure as the fiscal year clock ticked away, the Census Bureau lost a few tens of millions here and a few tens of millions there — and before you could say “prudent investment,” the need for a modest budget ramp up of 3 percent had become a budget cut of roughly $126 million, or 13 percent.

The hapless 2012 Economic Census — you know, the one that yields little secrets, like how well the economy is doing — really took it on the chin. FY2013 is the peak year in its short five-year lifecycle; now there’s not enough money to produce key economic data on time. The administration requested an exception from forced spending cuts, probably figuring it might be nice to know about payrolls, business investment and industry competitiveness when economic recovery is front and center, but Congress wouldn’t go along. Another likely casualty is the Survey of Business Owners, an add-on to the quinquennial (I love that word!) Economic Census which produces the only information on women-, minority- and veteran-owned businesses. We’re not just cutting budgets anymore; we’re losing information that helps us spend the money we do have wisely.

Tomorrow the president will unveil his budget request for FY2014. And it seems to me that Congress has a choice: it can pay now, to reduce total census costs conceivably by half — or it can pay later. More; much, much more.

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Sequestration Cuts’ Impact on Statistical Agencies

Posted on February 19, 2013 | 1 Comment

Steve PiersonThis blog post is provided by Steve Pierson of the American Statistical Association. Steve found three letters from statistical agencies that indicate the impact of the so-called sequestration cuts on these agencies.

In response to a request from Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (MD-D), federal agencies have sent letters to Mikulski on how sequestration would affect them. The letters are posted on the Senate Appropriations Commitee website and contain sequestration impacts for the Census Bureau, BLS and NASS. The other agency letters do not go to a level of detail to include the impacts on other federal statistical agencies (BEA, BJS, BTS, EIA. ERS, NCES, NCHS, NCSES, IRS SOI, SSA ORES).

In the letter from the Commerce Department, the following impacts for the Census Bureau are listed:

Sequestration would have to cut a total of $46 million from the Department’s Census Bureau. The Census Bureau will be forced to significantly cut contract dollars and not fill hundreds of vacancies, pushing back research and testing for the 2020 Decennial Census as well as seriously delaying the release of critical economic and demographic data needed for this calendar year.

The last benchmark of economic statistics supporting America’s assessment of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other key economic indicators was taken in 2007, prior to the recession. If the sequestration cuts move forward, the Census Bureau will be ready to make major departures from past operational designs that are intended to save money without diminishing quality. The Census Bureau has committed to executing a Census that would cost less per household in real dollars. Cuts now are virtually guaranteed to force the Census Bureau to ask for larger investments later, putting at risk that goal of achieving more significant forced to impose a six-month delay in releasing vital statistics for these indicators, putting at risk our ability to take accurate stock of current economic conditions and well-being and potentially impacting policy making and economic decisions in the private sector.

Furthermore, delays in developmental work for the 2020 Decennial Census will increase the risk that the Census Bureau will not be ready to make major departures from past operational designs that are intended to save money without diminishing quality. The Census Bureau has committed to executing a Census that would cost less per household in real dollars. Cuts now are virtually guaranteed to force the Census Bureau to ask for larger investments later, putting at risk that goal of achieving more significant savings.

In the letter from the Department of Agriculture, the section on the National Agricultural Statistical Service states that sequestration would stop FY13 scheduled activities for the Census of Agriculture including data processing. The letter goes on to say that data will be incomplete and not statistically sound for publication, which will “negatively affect decisions made by farmers, business and governments and ultimately will bring volatility to food markets and impact prices consumers pay.”

The Department of Labor letter states, “With millions in reductions, BLS would have to eliminate or reduce some of its programs.”

Presumably what is presented above for these three agency is paraphrased from much more substantive documents presented by Census, BLS and NASS to their respective departments.

Given the impacts of sequestration to the federal statistical agencies (and NSF and NIH), the ASA continues to urge its members to head the call late last year of 2012 President Bob Rodriguez: ASA President Asks ASA Members to Help Avoid Steep Cuts to NSF, NIH, and Federal Statistical Agencies.

See also:

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What Goes Around…

Posted on January 17, 2013 | 1 Comment

Terri Ann Lowenthalby Terri Ann Lowenthal

I love the census. Unlike many things in life, it’s so… predictable.

Just like clockwork, it comes around every 10 years. Like it or not politically; controversy be damned; the U.S. Constitution requires a decennial population count, and the U.S. Supremes have sanctioned Uncle Sam’s right to gather a broad set of useful information about America as part of that drill.

And what goes around seems to come around with respect to many spokes on the census wheel. Take, for example, the way Congress views census oversight. Almost a quarter-century ago (do I know how to date myself, or what?), I became staff director of the House Subcommittee on Census and Population. The census had its own, clearly-marked oversight panel, befitting of the nation’s largest peacetime mobilization. Four years later, that panel morphed into the Subcommittee on Census, Statistics, and Postal Personnel. Okay, the U.S. Postal Service delivers census forms and provides updated address information for the Master Address File. But overseeing postal workforce issues while trying to monitor the nation’s vast statistical system? We scrambled to conduct the thorough monitoring the 1990 census required (especially since we also were responsible for federal holidays and observances … go figure).

The Senate had a dimmer view of census importance, tucking it into a panel with responsibility for energy, nuclear proliferation and federal services back in the ‘70s and ‘80s. After Republicans claimed the House majority in 1995, the census bounced around every two years or so, between subcommittees with oversight of national security, international affairs and criminal justice, to technology (prescient, in hindsight) and health care, although it managed to regain the spotlight briefly with its own panel during the 2000 count. More recently, Senate Democrats just wanted to test our powers of memorization by creating the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security (known as FFM, for short, thank heavens).

So here we are in 2013, and House leaders have put on their interior decorating hats once again. The result: A new Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and the Census, chaired by second-term Rep. Blake Farenthold (R) of southern Texas, which sounds a lot like my old Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. The new chairman’s biography indicates past experience as a conservative radio talk show host, lawyer and web designer. We do know Rep. Farenthold supported the amendment last year to eliminate funding for the American Community Survey (ACS). I think stakeholders will need to dig out Census 101 materials and start the education process all over again.

Appreciation for the magnitude of census challenges is likely to be higher in the new Senate, now that former FFM subcommittee chair Tom Carper (D-DE) has assumed the top post on the full committee (Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs). And fortunately (or should I say, for better or worse?), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) will continue to head the appropriations subcommittees (Commerce, Justice, and Science) that hold the Census Bureau’s purse strings. At least they know the drill.

Some census issues don’t so much repeat themselves as stay suspended in constant states of flux. The questions on race, ethnicity and ancestry are the most notable examples. The Census Bureau just announced it would drop the term “Negro” (one of several terms used to describe Blacks or African Americans in previous censuses) from the race question, starting with the 2014 American Community Survey (pending comments on its Federal Register notice, due February 25.)

You might ask what took so long. But before the 1990 census, when my lovable but firm census panel chairman, Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D-CA), raised a well-known eyebrow to question the reference, Census officials explained that some older Black Americans still identified with the term and that the Bureau had to reach all segments of this historically undercounted population any way it could. Rep. Dymally, also chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus at the time, demurred. But I think few would argue with dropping the reference now.

So the census seasons, they go ‘round and ‘round (there I go, dating myself again with ancient folk song references)… no time to get off the merry-go-round and snooze with a never-ending (we hope) American Community Survey and with planning for Census 2020 census well underway.

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The American Community Survey: Blessed by the Founding Fathers

Posted on April 17, 2012 | 2 Comments

by Terri Ann Lowenthal

I’ve been losing sleep ever since several members of Congress (including a former judge!) posited at a congressional hearing last month that the Census Bureau was overstepping constitutional bounds by requiring people to answer questions on the American Community Survey (ACS).  The ACS relieved the decennial census of its long-form burden after Congress urged the Census Bureau to streamline the decennial count and provide policymakers with more timely information.  But more on that in a moment.

Now, I’m an advocate of informed decision-making.  I think we Americans have a duty to help our nation understand its collective condition and shared future direction.  But an unconstitutional government intrusion into our private lives?  Not on my watch.  The idea that our census agency has been violating fundamental tenants of our treasured founding blueprint since the nation … well, became a nation … has been keeping me up at night.

Fortunately, none other than “Father of the Constitution” James Madison has come to my rescue.  When the House of Representatives debated the very first census bill in 1790, this founding patriarch and primary author of the Bill of Rights observed that lawmakers now had “an opportunity of obtaining the most useful information for those who should hereafter be called upon to legislate for their country if this bill is extended so as to embrace some other objects besides the bare enumeration of the inhabitants; it would enable them to adapt the public measures to the particular circumstances of the community.  In order to know the various interests of the United States, it was necessary that the description of the several classes into which the community was divided, should be accurately known; on this knowledge the legislature might proceed to make a proper provision for the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing interests, but without it they could never make their provisions in due proportion.”  (As cited in Government Accountability Office, Legal Authority for American Community Survey, B-289852, April 4, 2002)

I couldn’t have said it better myself (though heaven knows I’ve tried).  But let me translate into 21st century English.  The census gives us a chance, Madison said, to collect data that lawmakers can use to make informed decisions that meet the needs of the nation’s people and communities — decisions related, for example, to the agricultural, business, and manufacturing sectors.  A range of data beyond the number of people in each household, which backers of a voluntary ACS suggest is the only constitutionally permissible purpose of the census, would ensure that Congress allocated resources based on actual conditions.  Imagine that!

As for the ACS, it was Congress, starting in 1991, that not-so-gently nudged the Census Bureau to give up the traditional vehicle for collecting demographic and socio-economic information — known as the “long form” — and to continue its “embrace … of other objects” (to quote the oh-so-eloquent James M.) on a more frequent basis from a sample of households spread out across more years.  Congress never suggested that the ACS would not continue to be a part of the census, perhaps knowing full well that lawmakers had tied half a trillion dollars annually in domestic program funding to the results.

Of course, Congress has been known to pass legislation that doesn’t quite pass constitutional muster.  That’s why we have the Supremes, who determined in 1870 that Congress has unquestionable power to require both a population count and the collection of additional statistics in the decennial census.  (The Legal Tender Cases, Tex.1870; 12 Wall., U.S., 457, 536, 20 L.Ed. 287)  It’s just what our fourth president envisioned to help the legislature, of which he was then a part, make wise decisions.  Whew!

I’m sleeping better already.  Sweet dreams!

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The Responsibilities of Being American

Posted on March 13, 2012 | 1 Comment

by Terri Ann Lowenthal

Three lawmakers argued unmindfully,
“We view government surveys unkindly.
Census law shouldn’t force
Us to be a data source,
And we’d rather make policy blindly!”

Okay, maybe I have too much time on my hands. (Plus, I’m trying to get in the St. Patrick’s Day spirit.)

But at a hearing last week, a House subcommittee considered a bill (H.R. 931) to make response to the American Community Survey (ACS) voluntary. The consequences for the collection and publication of useful data about the nation’s economic and social conditions and progress could be catastrophic. And, I would venture, not well considered by the idea’s proponents.

Granted, the millions of Americans not surrounded daily by the wonders of census data are probably saying, “Well, that makes sense!” Who wants to answer a survey with 50+ questions about themselves and their families, their homes and incomes, and their commuting habits? (Most households will never have the honor; the survey is sent to only 3.5 million addresses a year. Even over a five-year period, fewer homes must answer the ACS than were required to answer the census long form it replaced starting with the 2010 Census.)

For starters, all public witnesses at the hearing made strong cases for keeping ACS response mandatory, in order to maintain the quality and usefulness of the vital data we get from the survey. We’re talking about representatives from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the business-oriented National Association of Realtors and the nonprofit Greater Houston Partnership (the bill’s sponsor is from the Houston area).

I visited Houston’s website. The city boasts a “thriving business economy” and directs people interested in Houston’s business and trade to the Partnership. The economic development group’s lead researcher testified [.pdf] that business decisions “are now data driven” and called the ACS “one of the most important tools in our kit” to attract business investment from around the globe. And why must response to the survey remain mandatory? Because, as the Partnership and other stakeholders pointed out, mail response to a voluntary survey would drop dramatically; to gather enough responses to maintain data quality, the Census Bureau would have to increase the sample size (more households would get the darn survey) and spend more money (30 percent more, tests have shown) to collect data by telephone and in-person visits.

Did someone say more money? Didn’t Congress just whack the Census Bureau’s budget the past two years? Without that unlikely additional funding, economic development agencies across the country can kiss their useful toolkits goodbye. That doesn’t sound like a very pro-business and pro-economic growth strategy to me.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) questioned the constitutional authority for gathering any information beyond the number of people in a household, used to divvy up seats in the House of Representatives after each decennial population count. Let me make this easy: Article I, §2, giving Congress responsibility for taking a census “in such Manner as they shall by Law direct,” combined with Article I, §7, giving Congress the authority to make laws.

Laws such as Title 13, U.S.C., §141(a), in which Congress authorized the Secretary of Commerce to conduct the census “in such form and content as he may determine, including the use of sampling and special surveys … the Secretary is authorized to obtain such other census information as necessary” and the related §141(g), defining the ten-year census as one covering “population, housing, and matters relating to population and housing” (all emphasis added). And §182 of the same title (known at the “Census Act”), allowing the Commerce chief to conduct surveys producing “annual and other interim current data” between censuses. Don’t forget §221, requiring people to respond to the census and to annual and interim surveys.

Then there are the hundreds of federal laws allocating almost half a trillion dollars a year (yes, you read that correctly) based directly or indirectly on data from the ACS, to states and localities for education, road improvements, mass transit, physical and mental health services, rural businesses and farm labor housing, affordable housing for the elderly and people with disabilities, economic development, and energy improvements. Did I mention outreach to disabled veterans? (Yes, I’m shameless. But I didn’t pass these laws. Congress did.)

Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), sponsor of the voluntary ACS bill, is a former judge and prosecutor with a deep interest in preventing and addressing the terrible consequences of crime. In 2008, he noted that the government spends billions of dollars on the criminal justice system. “The cost of crime is not cheap,” the congressman said, “… [but] the price is worth it to ensure order, safety, and appropriate punishment for those who fail to follow the law.” That year, the State of Texas received $32 million in federal taxpayer dollars to help keep communities safe — based on ACS data alone.

Are Chairmen Issa and Gowdy suggesting that Congress made all of these laws, and that the Census Bureau (and its historical equivalents, some of which were temporary committees Congress established every 10 years to oversee the enumeration) gathered information similar to the content of today’s ACS in violation of the Constitution since the first census in 1790? Boy, I sure hope not! Quelle horreur!

Speaking of French, Canada decided to do something similar a few years ago, relegating its census long form to a voluntary survey. The country’s head statistician resigned in protest.

Finally, the privacy concerns. I understand the objection: Government shouldn’t have a right to request personal information. Except maybe our income, which we are required to report to the IRS annually. But the Census Bureau doesn’t have a right to ask about it … anyway, as I was saying … Rep. Gowdy said ACS data might be useful, but Uncle Sam “does not have an overriding state interest to force people to divulge their private matters.”

Fortunately, the Census Bureau does not want a dossier on every American. It does not do anything with your personal answers. It takes our responses and turns them into a statistical portrait of our nation, our states, our cities and communities. To help us understand collectively where we came from and where we are going. If we’re headed into a ditch, I want to know in advance. You know, to prepare. And maybe turn in a different direction.

Yes, we Americans have a right to privacy. But we also have responsibilities. We have a shared history and will have a shared future. I don’t want to live in a country that drifts along without transparent, objective benchmarks to guide it. I want to know that my elected officials have a reason for making the decisions they do. I want my tax dollars aimed at neighborhoods that need and deserve the assistance. I want my city and county to have data that will attract new investment and job opportunities.

I want information that lets me hold my national, state and local government officials accountable. To me, that’s the best part about being an American. But I can’t do that if I don’t do my part. And my neighbors don’t do theirs.

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Budget Deja Vu: Guard The Piggybank!

Posted on February 27, 2012 | Comments Off

by Terri Ann Lowenthal

Were you getting ready to burrow underground for a while, census fans? (Didn’t the groundhog see his shadow?) Not so fast! President Obama’s Census Bureau budget request [PDF] for Fiscal Year 2013 (FY2013) compels us to shake off early-in-the-decade cobwebs and convince lawmakers that a modest increase in funding for the agency will not break the federal bank.

In fact, it just might save the Treasury significant money in the foreseeable future, as successful testing of electronic response options for ongoing surveys could reduce costly door-to-door data collection in the 2020 Census, and continuous updating of the national address list and digital map could eliminate universal pre-census address canvassing, which also comes with a high price tag. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The president proposed a total budget of $970 million for the Census Bureau, a 3 percent rise over the Fiscal Year 2012 funding level of $942 million. Truth be told, Congress pretended to give the Census Bureau $942 million last year, but in the light of day, it appropriated only $887 million, directing the agency to use $55 million from the now well-known, much-maligned Working Capital Fund (WCF) to make up the difference.

The top program priorities in 2013 will be the Economic Census and continued planning for the 2020 Census. Next year (which starts October 1, 2012) marks the peak of a six-year planning and implementation cycle for the 2012 Economic Census ($112 million), as the Census Bureau gathers information from 3 million business enterprises across the country (using 4.6 million forms, in case you’re into numbers). It’s worth remembering that this quinquennial measure of the nation’s economic health almost came to a screeching halt last year when House appropriators reduced (whacked!) the bureau’s budget request by a quarter. Lawmakers came to their senses after economists kindly pointed out that the nation needs data from this census to produce key indicators such as Gross Domestic Product.

As 2010 Census activities wind down with final evaluations and data products, planning for the next decennial enumeration is on its cyclical upswing. We aren’t talking big money yet, but the 2020 Census budget request ($131.4 million) is nearly double the FY2012 funding level ($66.7 million), a bump appropriators might find hard to swallow unless there’s a good reason. Fortunately, there are several.

It seems like a no-brainer but Congress has been known to ignore the obvious, so it’s worth repeating. The Census Bureau must invest resources early in the decade to ensure cost-effective, successful implementation of census operations down the road. The pace of technological change and rapid evolution of communication modes make ongoing research and testing essential. Similarly, keeping up with changes in the nation’s housing stock and roads could save hundreds of millions of dollars (now that’s real money!) during census preparations in 2018-19, allowing the bureau to confine final address checking to areas in frequent transition. And steps the agency takes now to improve large acquisition and contract management for the census could help it avoid billion dollar (literally) mistakes later.

Overall, the president’s funding request for the Census Bureau appears to be reasonable and responsible, taking advantage of cost savings whenever possible and investing prudently in programs that will yield, both directly and indirectly, savings for the agency and the nation in the future. For example, American households can answer the American Community Survey electronically starting in January 2013, saving an estimated several million dollars a year. The Census Bureau will try again to update its Supplemental Poverty Measure, an important policy building block that the bureau couldn’t pay for in FY2012.

Let’s hope legislators can resist the urge to dip into the WCF piggybank again, as funding caps continue to shrink. I’m not holding my breath though. (Have I mentioned recently that Senate appropriators helpfully encouraged the Census Bureau to spend less on the 2020 Census than it did on the 2000 count, without adjusting for inflation? I’m still chewing on this.) Census officials haven’t ignored congressional hand wringing over the lack of transparency in WCF practices; the agency is seeking outside expertise to help it improve performance measures and business models.

When you think about it, the bones of the census funding story haven’t changed, but it seems like it’s getting harder to get lawmakers to listen. So dust off those winter blues, census gurus, and start reminding your elected representatives that they can’t do their jobs without the rich store of data the Census Bureau produces. The bureau’s budget is a drop in the bucket when compared to the value of the public and private sector decisions that ride on its work, day in and day out.

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Posted in Census 2020, Census Budget Issues, Congressional Oversight, Economic Census

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New Year’s Worries

Posted on January 17, 2012 | 1 Comment

by Terri Ann Lowenthal

Now that the holidays have come and gone, I have a lot on my mind in the new year. The next census will start in eight years; the dress rehearsal is only six years away; local governments will start reviewing address lists in five years, when the Census Bureau, by law, must submit 2020 Census topics to Congress … oh my, where has the time gone?

And the fun really never stops. In a few weeks, the president will send his Fiscal Year 2013 budget to Congress; legislators will declare the proposal dead-on-arrival, retreat to their partisan corners of the ring for nine months, and fail to pass their own version of a spending plan before the fiscal year actually starts on October 1.

Oh sure, they’ll take a stab at passing funding bills. For the last two fiscal years, and at the eleventh hour, Congress dipped into the Census Bureau’s once-obscure Working Capital Fund (WCF) to meet reduced budget targets for the appropriations account covering commerce, justice and science programs, which includes the Census Bureau. In the uncertain world that is Congress, two years a trend does make. This has me very worried.

Historically, the Census Bureau has been a sitting duck for appropriators in the early years of a decade. With decennial census fatigue setting in when a year ending in “1″ rolls around, lawmakers seem to catch a collective case of indifference, helping themselves to significant chunks of the agency’s budget in order to meet tight federal spending limits and pay for other favored programs.

Once Congress discovers a large pot of money not on the radar of letter-writing, phone-calling constituents, it is likely to go to that well as many times as it can plausibly defend. Generally, that means until The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or The Washington Post editors point out how ludicrous the budget cut is. That’s what happened with the inconspicuous Economic Census, which might have been cancelled after House appropriators slashed the Bureau’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget request by a quarter. (A 11/16/11 Huffington Post headline trumpeted, “Census Budget Cuts Eliminate Data on Job Creators.” A bit of an embarrassment for lawmakers in a recession marked by high unemployment.) Then Congress finds another way to reduce spending that turns out to be so difficult to explain, the funding bill is law before anyone has a chance to wrap their head around the consequences.

And regrettably, those consequences are not entirely clear at first blush. Census stakeholders from businesses, to advocates for the poor, to local governments can easily explain how a loss of reliable data hampers their ability to understand the communities they serve and allocate their fiscal and human resources prudently. (The real challenge is getting anyone in Congress to listen.) But the bureau’s Working Capital Fund, which (as GAO explains in a recent report, GAO-12-56) is a form of that exciting financing mechanism, an intergovernmental revolving fund? Not so much.

Cutting the WCF gives Congress some cover; it can say it didn’t take funds from important data collection programs, such as the American Community Survey (ACS), or research activities, such as testing an Internet response option for the 2020 count. But is that really the case? You can only cut shared overhead costs and capital investments so much before the foundation gets shaky and the building starts to crumble. Updated computers and enhanced security systems (for an agency with data privacy at its core)? They might sound like luxuries in today’s fiscal climate, but a business can only go so long without investing in operating improvements. Rent to GSA? The bureau’s National Processing Center in Jeffersonville, Indiana? Can’t do without a roof over your head and someone to tabulate all of that information you collect. So how to make up for the WCF losses of $55 million in FY11 and $50 million in FY12? Census Bureau program managers will have to tighten their belts once again, shedding activities that arguably fall lower on the priority list. Do you miss the beloved Statistical Abstract yet? Well, hang on to your statistical seats; more surveys, research and data products inevitably could fall by the wayside if the trend of cutting funds for essential shared services continues.

One more thing that’s bothering me about this new chapter in census budget-raiding history: Lawmakers who have a bone to pick with the Census Bureau could prune the Working Capital Fund to make a political point, without so obviously putting a specific program beloved by stakeholders at risk. Maybe a senator is unhappy with a staff appointment, or the population number for their state, or their inability to access a data set to which they aren’t entitled? I’m just saying.

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