Census Cents Makes No Sense

As many of you know, I am retired. The last 20 years of my working life was in law enforcement. I remember in late 1999 and early 2000, we were sent briefing items talking about the census.

We were told that if we got any calls about the census, we should know what’s going on. We learned that there was a census every decade. You’d be surprised at how many young cops didn’t know that. Of course, most were living with parents during the last census, so this was something new for them. Now we learned that the law says that everyone is required to respond to the census. So, if anyone asks us we’ll know. As the time got closer we received more briefing items.

Then it arrived. It was amazing to me how many calls our dispatch center received. Some asking about the census and what was required by law. Others complaining because they hadn’t gotten a form.

Now, at my house in the early nineties, we had cluster boxes. The mailboxes had been broken into several times, so my wife and I decided to get a PO Box. The postal employee at our post office explained that since we were going to get mail at our PO Bx then they would forward any mail we received at the old address for a full 180 days. Cool, but after that, we could only get mail at the PO Bx and the cluster box would be treated as if the residence was empty. Ok, I could deal with that.

So, that meant that in 2000, I did not receive a census form for my household. So, I called the census bureau office. I asked what would happen. They said not to worry, they would put one in the mail right away to my PO Bx. The worker also explained that for houses that they didn’t get a reponse from, a census worker would be sent to knock on the door and get the info.

There was lot’s of talk about census workers on the news. Apparently, there were lot’s of scammers out there who would knock on doors and get information about people then steal their identity. So to combat this, the census bureau did a very good thing. They sent each police department a letter saying that when there was a census worker in our area, he would check in with the local police or sheriff. They would give their name and what area they would be in that day. They would also have an official form of identification identifying them as a census worker. That way, the citizens could check with the local law enforcement office and see if the guy claiming to be a census worker was legit.

I never got the form they said they'd mail me, but lo and behold, one afternoon, there was a knock at my door. A middle aged hispanic gentleman identified himself as a census worker. I excused myself and said I would be right with him. I then went in and called the local dispatch center. Guess what? No one had checked in with them for about a week. Hmmm.

I went back out and talked with the guy. Surely, he was for real because there was a police car sitting in my drive way and no criminal would be that brazen. He had all the right credentials. So, I figured, what the hey. I had been through the census a few times, what could it hurt. So, this guy starts asking questions.

Now from the censuses I had been through, I remembered that they asked who all lived there, what their names are, hold old are they, what do they do for a living, and what relationship they were to the head of the household. They also asked some education questions and about race.

This guy starts asking questions and he asks for specific birth dates and social security numbers. So I said, NOPE, you ain’t gettin’ that. I had spent too many hours working identity theft cases and I trained my guys and girls to tell citizens, never ever give out social security numbers, birth dates, or maiden names unless you are absolutely positive who you are giving them to. So, I tell the guy, that I’ll be happy to drive to Palm Springs and give them that info, or if he could just give me the form, I’ll fill it out and mail it in right now. He gave me a spiel about the law and said he would notify his supervisor and someone would contact me.

So, I’m at work the next day, out in the field doing my supervisor duties when dispatch tells me to come to the station and see the Deputy Chief. I get there and he asked me why I wasn’t cooperating with the census bureau. I explained as above. While I was in his office, he makes a call to the census people, tells someone that I was in his office and I would be happy to cooperate. He then explains to them why I did not the night before. Then he laughs some and hands me the phone. At the other end of the phone was this condisending asshole who first starts giving me the riot act telling me how I could go to jail, etc. So I tell him, look I gotta go do some police work, could I come out to his office that afternoon. His whole attitude immediately changes and ask that I call back when I’m available and that the whole thing would only take a few minutes. So I hang up.

The Deputy Chief just kinda looks at me in amusement without saying a word. So I tell him that I couldn’t believe that asshole talking to me like that and how he could kiss my ass if he thought I was gonna take that crap from him. He just smiled and said to make sure I take care of it, that what he thought was bullshit was that he was getting a call about it.

I then called dispatch and asked how many census takers had checked in this week. The answer was ZERO, absolutely none. Remember, I had already called the neighboring city where I live the night before. I then went to the briefing room and dug out the papers on the clipboard from the census bureau. I then walked up to the report writing room and placed the call.

This time the guy was very nice and thanked me for calling back. He went through the questions and I answered each one without questioning the necessity of the question knowing that he wasn’t the one who designed the form, he was just filling it out. But, knowing too, that he was a supervisor, I asked him very calmly and politely why his workers weren’t following the protocol that the census bureau had set up to avoid these types of things. He never really gave me an answer but said he’d look into it. I then told him I had one last question.

I asked him why he had called my place of employment instead of contacting me. I said I thought it quite odd, and asked if he would have called my boss, say, had I worked for the phone company or a grocery store. You’ll never believe what he told me. His answer was that the question I was asking sounds like one that should be directed to his legal department. WEIRD! I thanked him and we both hung up.
The next morning I asked dispatch if any of census takers had checked in, then I asked a week later. None did, ever.

Back to today.

Now, having told my story, I would like to say.... I am 100% for the census. I have a hobby of genealogy and genealogists love censuses. That's where most family tree info is obtained. The census is good. They use it for a lot of things other than just population counts. Those demographic numbers will be used over and over again for decisions on marketing, how do distribute federal and state funding. The schools will use it to decide boundries, bussing issues, etc. The census is a good thing. I encourage you to go to 2010.census.gov and take a look.

See the form:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_U.S.%20news/Life/2010CensusQuestionnaire.pdf

One thing the census people won’t be asking this time around is social security number. They will be asking for birth dates. Of the ten questions on their form, I personally feel three are completely unnecessary. You decide.

This census is costing us, the taxpayers, approximately $14 Billion. That’s ridiculous as far as I’m concerned. The “trained enumerators” (what the census people call the counters) are getting between $15 and $20 an hour. That could have easily been done with $10 an hour and using college students, senior citizens, and the unemployed. Or, they could have had the unemployed and welfare people do it for that free money we’re giving them. I know, employers pay into unemployment.

Today, I got a letter in the mail telling me that the census is coming in the mail next week. There’s another $100 million wasted. 2010,census.gov says this was done because of surveys and research saying that they would get a better response. The surveys and research are a huge waste. Who knows how much they spend on that. I know whenever the city contracted with a consultant for anything, it was a minimum $25G. Imagine what the Feds pay.

One last interesting fact. They say on their website that for every one percent of people that don’t respond, it costs $85 million to send people out and collect the information. They say also that from the mailers, they only receive a 70 % response. That means that once they’ve sent it out and got the 70 % back, it then costs another $2.5 Billion. Ok, so 14 billion all together. 85 million for each 1 percent. Times 100 percent is only $8.5 billion. By those numbers, we could have saved $5.5 billion dollars by just sending people to the house to start with.

Census 2010....BE COUNTED!