Last Monday, I received a post card from the United States Department of Commerce. U.S.Census Bureau. It told me that my address had been chosen to participate in an American Community Survey. I received the same post card on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, the questionnaire packet arrived. Today (Monday) I received THREE post cards asking if I had sent the survey in yet.
The survey consists of 21 pages of questions, concerning, among other things, do I have a second mortgage, how do I get to work, income in the last 12 months, how much my pension is, if retired, do I have any illnesses, and what meds am I taking, and on and on it goes. It also mentions that “You are required by law to respond to this survey”.
WTF?
This thing is invasive and intimidating, and It does not make me feel comfortable at all. Anyone out there received this? I am sure to be getting more post cards tomorrow. Does it sound legit?
That would be ‘CENSUS’ in the title, sorry.
I received something very similar to what you’re describing sometime last year. I called both the 800 number that they give for questions and also looked up the website and called another 800 number from there. They both said it was legit., but if I felt uncomfortable, I could use a phony name since they were only collecting statistics and not trying to verify who I was. The person who answered from the website phone number also explained why the information was necessary for some of the questions that I thought were invasive.
It also seemed daunting because they clearly state that sending it back is required by law.
They were very clear that they did NOT ask for credit card numbers or social security numbers, but it felt like a lot of info. to me also.
If it would make you feel more comfortable, you might want to call and ask to see if your community is being surveyed currently.
Urban Planning student here so we use Census Data a lot. The US Census pick people at random to fill out these really in depth questionnaires which then statisticians use as a sample of the entire census track. It’s really really really important that people participate in these things because this helps plan a lot of public goods and services.
My grandmother had to fill out one of these forms in the 60’s. She had a 2 bedroom house and lived alone. She was afraid that the government was going to send someone to live with her, to not “waste” the other bedroom.
Unless you have to sign for them they government cannot prove you recieved them.
I pretty paranoid about government too but seriously people this stuff is really important for present/future policy makers like myself. The questions are really detailed for good reason… does a large percentage of a certain neighborhood not have a car or only has one car? We would look at that data and decide on possibly creating a bus line. The Man will always be watching you whether you fill these applications out or not. Might as well fill them out anyways and rally for better public services.
I got one a few months ago, and actually had a quite interesting discussion when I finally talked to the enumerator on the phone. A couple of the questions had to do with ethnic/racial identity.
As a person of Ashkenazi Jewish mutt descent whose great-grandparents come from probably 6 different countries (depending on what year you choose to count what countries they came from), I don’t feel “white,” but I don’t fit any of their other categories either. The Jewish population is only about 2% in the U.S., and yet they had separate listings for all sorts of backgrounds which must have far fewer people belonging to them than my background - I mean really, how many full-blooded Inuit people are there in the U.S. these days? And no, just because my great-grandfather was born in Ukraine, that doesn’t mean he’s Ukrainian! I thought the enumerator would be annoyed and try to move me along to the rest of the questions, but I think she actually enjoyed the discussion.
(However, whoever laid out the questions wasn’t thinking straight - near the beginning it asks how many people live in the household, but there are several questions later on which ask for information about other household members, such as what languages they speak. Ummmm, the only other household member is a native Mutt Cat speaker.)
I worked for the Census Bureau part-time in 1990 going door-to-door. Every so often, a long questionnaire was designated for a particular address. The questions on it sound like the same questions they’re asking you now. It’s for statistical purposes and relates to calculating federal funding for various programs, etc.
My next-door neighbor works for the Census Bureau, and she contacted me the other day about borrowing a tool. Does that count?
I posted a thread on this a while back.
I found the concept extremely offensive. We declined to participate, and withstood multiple mailings and weeks of near daily phone calls. Seems to have stopped now. Not sure it was worth it.
A good friend of mine got freaked out because her family got a mailing like this. It’s totally legitamate and you get fined if you don’t participate.
I’ve already decided that not only will I not pay the fine and go to jail, but I won’t participate, should this survey come to me. I can answer if I have a car. I will not answer (this was one of the questions) what time of the day I go to work and what route I take to get there. I am sorry, I am paranoid. I don’t give a crap about policy makers, I don’t care how useful the information is - only people I know personally have a right to that kind of information about where I am at any given hour of any given day. I’d answer questions about my sex life before I answer things like that.
~Tasha
I just don’t understand this.
If you decline to participate in such things, the data gathered from which will be used only in aggregate, you disadvantage yourself and everyone else by effectively blinding those people who design your roads, your sewer and water systems and all the amenities your tax dollars pay for. Without the information they request such utilities are destined to be more poorly designed for your needs than they could be.
I would posit that similarly to the saying that those who do not vote cannot complain about the government, so it is with those who refuse to fill out a census.
As a side note, are these random piecemeal census forms the only type of census collected in the States or is there also a ‘whole population’ census done every so often (as is the case here in Ireland).
From what I could tell on-line, no one has been fined for failing to comply. Nor have we (yet!)
cw - I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, until I got into it and saw how incredibly detailed it was. I realize there is effectively no real privacy these days, and the gov’t likely has access to all of these bits and pieces of info in various places. But something in my wife and I still rebelled against handing over all of our vital info in a single neat package, to be shared among who knows what agencies.
I haven’t received it, but you can bet your ass they’ll have to drag my ass to court before I’ll answer questions like those posted here. NO. FUCKIN’. WAY. And I’ll bet their “demand” for this information won’t hold up in court anyway. But if they want to test it, bring it on. Fuckers.
I totally don’t understand this either. The Census Data is used to work towards funding public goods and services, not to spy into your life. You people are too paranoid.
“I don’t give a crap about policy makers” oh come on. Of course you give a crap. You pay taxes don’t you? You drive on public roads, dont you? You breathe the same air as everyone else… you better give a damn about policy makers because they shape every aspect of your life.
You’d rather answer questions about your sex life then answer questions about how you get to work? Please explain, I am curious.
And don’t you use credit cards? Online banking? Google? A cell phone? I guarantee the information collected on these things are being used against you more so than the U.S. Census Data.
There is a ‘whole population’ census done every 10 years, where they try to contact every household for basic demographic information.
Even in the 10 year census, some of the households are singled out for the “long form” which is much like the questionnaire discussed here, while most get by with filling out basic information only.
Yes, but how do you truly know who sent you the survey? Just because the Census Bureau happens to send out a survey with similar questions doesn’t mean a thing. Just because the nice man in uniform has a flashing blue light on his car doesn’t mean he’s an actual police officer. There are plenty of people out there who will do unimaginably bad things to people who are trying to do what they think they’re supposed to do. To say it looks legit doesn’t help; if these things didn’t look legit no one would ever be scammed. If in the interest of keeping self and family safe and protected, you have every right to be as paranoid as you feel necessary.
Prezactly. Regarding what routes people take to work…they don’t need to know that to maintain roads. They need to throw one of those ticker hoses down and count the cars that go through an intersection. It isn’t their business how much money is in my pension. All of the questions posed here by the OP could be information that could get an old person scammed out of their life savings. I’m going to call my dad and let him know that this is out there and to find out if it’s legit or if the bad guys found an enormous opportunity to rip people off.
You think data is that simple collect? Ok, heres an example of why the Census Bureau would ask those questions. We ask how you get to work because it can say a lot about the socioeconomics of the area. Maybe the data returned is showing that people with higher incomes are less likely to use public transportation or car pooling. Or people with lower incomes are more reliant on public transportation… then we can create public programs to help solve this problem, such as create tax incentives for large corporations to encourage car pooling or public transportation subsidies… or we can create insurance programs for lower-income families to afford car insurance so they can go out and buy a car instead of soley relying on public transportation. (california has a program like this).
Pension info: Maybe the data shows us that many people of Hispanic origin do not have a pension or have any sort of retirement savings. Public programs can be geared then to address this problem, such as having financial planning advice printed in Spanish or have local schools in the area have meetings addressing the importance of financial planning and have financial planners come who are fluent in Spanish.
These are just a few examples of what the census data can do for you and your community. Seriously people
Yes, there can be people out there trying to commit fraud but for the most part, everything officially distributed by the Census Bureau is out for statisical data purposes only… not to wiretap into you life (as if The Man isn’t doing that already).
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