…you don’t fill out your Census form?
There have been quite a few ads encouraging people to fill out their Censuses (Censi?), implying that if they don’t:
No one will be able to get child care.
Schools will be forced to have classes in broom closets.
And, in general <scary music>BAD THINGS</scary music> will happen.
Just how important is a Census?
Does the country(including local governments) really base most of its decisions on data that is, on the average, five years old?
Did the Census Bureau really waste a bunch of money on a botched attempt to send everyone a letter describing the Census?
And just how is the Census Constitutional, anyway (yes, “enumeration” is mentioned in the Constitution, but not “grilling every single US citizen”)?
Actually the census is pretty important. The census numbers determine congressional representation and quite a lot of government spending.
Note that illegal aliens are counted in the census on the theory that members of congresss represt all the people in their district, whether or not they have a right to vote, or even reside in this country. (Don’t blame me, I don’t make the rules!)
He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’
As SingleDad pointed out, Congresssional representation will be determined by the Census. There’s two parts to that: apportionment and redistricting.
Apportionment is the process of determining how many representatives each state will place in the House of Representatives. The Constitution (Article 1, Section 2) says that a decennial enumeration will be the basis for that step, and the Census Bureau is the agency charged with the responsibility of carrying out that enumeration.
Redistricting is the process of drawing Congressional districts of equal population within each state. The states aren’t required to base their Congressional districts on Census data, but they do because the Census Bureau’s numbers are the best numbers. So fill out your Census form so your state gets as many reps as it should, and so the lines get drawn where they should.
Another thing the Census data is good for is to get good demographic data. State and local governments use it to make informed decisions about where to build roads, schools, and whatnot; businesses also use the Census data to decide where to expand retail operations, place factories, and so forth. Good information makes a lot of things work better; you send it in, and the Census Bureau puts it together with everyone else’s data, and makes the demographic info (but NOT any information on individual people) available to everybody.
But the real reason why you should fill out your Census form and mail it back is because, if you don’t, the Census Bureau has to send an enumerator out to your door to get you to answer the questions, face to face. This costs much more money than if you just mail back the questionnaire.
Paying for the enumerators to do this followup operation costs more than everything else involved in the Census this year, combined. Billions of dollars will go to this phase of the Census alone. The more people send their forms in, the fewer enumerators have to be sent out, and the more of your tax dollars get saved.
Second Place (tie), Most Valuable Poster (GD)
Second Place, Best Scientific/Expert Explanations (GD)
Not that it’s gone to my head or anything.
Basing decisions on five-year old data is better than a WAG! Also, the data isn’t as dated as you might think. For example, if it shows that 5% of the population is under 10 years old, that’s probably still more or less true five years later, and the absolute numbers can be predicted based on previous growth (which you also can’t do if you don’t have a census every 10 years).
The botched addressing on those 120 million letters won’t prevent them from being delivered. An extra digit was added to the street address, but supposedly the post office will deliver them anyway.
Arjuna34
Wow. Now I feel jilted for not having received a census form yet. I’m all pumped up to represent my demographic and everything.
I’d much rather have two corrupt, money-grubbing, theiving thugs representing me than just one.
I am the user formerly known as puffington.
The Census is really important. It’s been a big deal around these parts, because a couple local farming towns have very large Latino communities, most of whom are immigrants and speak little to no English. As a result, hundreds of houses were not counted in one town alone, and money that could have been allocated to schools, public works, etc., just wasn’t. As you can imagine, this town isn’t particularly wealthy (besides being a center for migrant farmers, it was almost completely destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, and never really made a full recovery) and that money would have been well-used. As a result, there has been a big push to get everyone in the county counted, with lots of Spanish-language posters and such. That’s just one example, but yeah, the census is important.
~Harborina
“Don’t Do It.”