A Census every 3 years?

By: Hubert Crowell

Our Constitution calls for a Census every ten years to determine how many Representatives each State will have, (Article I, Section 3.) Starting with the 2000 census, under the Clinton administration, the Department of Commerce contracted with the American Community Survey (pdf format), to collect data on our population every three years. The ideal is to collect from a portion of the population during each three year cycle. Over a ten year period they would collect personal data from everyone and therefore replace the normal census count once every ten years.

Sound like a great plan! Then here come the rub, they want more and more information. It used to be just head of household, age, occupation and the number of people living in the home.

The code for the enumeration can be found in 13USC141. In this code, the census is directed to be taken in 1980 and every ten years thereafter, and that the count is to be taken on April 1. The returns must be completed within nine months for use in apportionment of representatives. The code also specifies a mid-decade census be taken in 1985 and every ten years thereafter. This count need not be a head count (sampling may be used) though the data cannot be used for apportionment.

13USC141 Starts out:

TITLE 13--CENSUS CHAPTER 5--CENSUSES SUBCHAPTER II--POPULATION, HOUSING, AND UNEMPLOYMENT

Sec. 141. Population and other census information

(a) The Secretary shall, in the year 1980 and every 10 years thereafter, take a decennial census of population as of the first day of April of such year, which date shall be known as the ``decennial census date'', in such form and content as he may determine, including the use of sampling procedures and special surveys. In connection with any such census, the Secretary is authorized to obtain such other census information as necessary.

.....

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the use of any statistical method, in connection with a decennial census, for the apportionment or redistricting of Members in Congress.

At what point is you right to privacy violated with census questions?

The Constitution does not specifically mention a right to privacy. However, Supreme Court decisions over the years have established that the right to privacy is a basic human right, and as such is protected by virtue of the 9th Amendment. The right to privacy has come to the public's attention via several controversial Supreme Court rulings, including several dealing with contraception (the Griswold and Eisenstadt cases), interracial marriage (the Loving case), and abortion (the well-known Roe v Wade case). In addition, it is said that a right to privacy is inherent in many of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, such as the 3rd, the 4th's search and seizure limits, and the 5th's self-incrimination limit.

Personal Questions:

In this age of non-discrimination why are they asking for origin and race? Question 5 could not be answered by someone of mixed origin and this would include most of the people in the U.S.

Question 6 even uses the "N" word and just how far back are we supposed to go?

Apparently they don't care about more than 5 people in the household, they only ask for name sex and age. I guess this is to meet the requirement for the number of representatives. And if you have more than 12 living in your household, they don't want to know about it.

Questions 7 through 48 really get personal and I have to admit that I would be very uneasy placing all that information in one place. Some worker at the American Community Survey Org. Could get very rich selling all this information. What if mandatory health insurance is passed, what better place for the government to go to see how has coverage than this record.

Housing Questions:

These 21 questions require more information than I even keep. What about the second home? Did they just forget that some people have a second or third home.

Dead Line:

After reading the form carefully, I could not find any deadline for competition, as soon as possible does not mean much to people now days. So I will have to study the form a little more before I make a decision.

Not Required to respond:

Before the nice lady at the ACS hung up, she informed me that I had been listed as refusing to answer the survey.

We may decide to not answer the survey and in doing so we are breaking the law. I honestly don't think that the Office of Management and Budget are trying to become "BIG BROTHER", they just love to collect information thinking that it will help the under privileged. In doing so they are encouraging "BIG GOVERNMENT".

A 2008 statement by Susan E. Dudley, Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs U.S. Office of Management and Budget before a subcommittee about "Does Federal Statistical Data Adequately Serve People Living with Disabilities?", provides some insight into the thinking. She gave high praise to the ACS and makes it clear that the ACS has replaced the Decennial Census long form and will provide data annually, rather than only once a decade. Her goal is to focus on the non-institutionalized population ages 18 and over for the health status and including obesity, risk behaviors such as smoking and alcohol use, insurance coverage, and access to health care.

I noted that lack of insurance coverage has now been lumped into a category with smoking and drinking as a bad thing. The question then becomes do we have the freedom to do things that are bad for us? And how far should we let government go in enforcing this.

After reading the statement on the back of the form, and checking out approval number from the Office of Management and Budget, OMB No. 0607-0810 I discovered that it had expired on 5/31/2008. I am not sure why it says EXPIRATION DATE: 05/31/2008, The date on form ACS-1 is 05-22-2008. Maybe 05/31/2008 was the date that they finished the review. If this is the case, it took one week to review and approve this form. Are the hours then the man hours spent on the approval process? I could not find any explanation of this information.

http://www.whitehouse .gov/omb/rewrite/library/OMBINV.USDA.COMMERCE.html

OMB NO: 0607-0810 EXPIRATION DATE: 05/31/2008
RESPS:3,160,610 HOURS:1,917,410 COSTS(000):$0
The American Community Survey
FORMS: ACS-1 ACS-1SP ACS-1PR ACS- 1PR(SP) ACS-290 ACS-1GQ ACS-4GQ

Why The American Community Survey will fail

There are two flaws in the system, ACS data becomes less reliable for small geographic areas. In a Statement of Linda Jacobsen, vice president, Domestic Programs, Population Reference Bureau, before the Joint Economic Committee, U. S. Congress, July 21, 2009, she explained some differences between the census long form and the ACS. Foremost was the fact that the sample size of the current ACS is much smaller. As a result, ACS data from multiple years must be combined to provide reliable estimates for geographic areas with smaller population sizes. The ACS provides 1-year estimates for areas with populations of at least 65,000, 3-year estimates for areas with populations between 20,000 and 65,000, and 5-year estimates for areas with less than 20,000 people. This last group, the first 5-year estimates for 2005-2009 are schedule for release in 2010.

She made it clear that without additional funding the ACS could not provide the detail data desired. More funding will be required to keep up with the changes in population. This is one more project that has a runaway budget.

With more information requested each year, they will not be able to convince the public to provide all the personal information. In Linda Jacobsen's statement, 15 million addresses were surveyed resulting in only 10.5 million final interviews. Or about 1 in 9 households responded to the survey. If you look over the questions asked you can see why, take question number 2: How is this person related to the owner of the house. If this is an adopted child and they do not want it known, how are they going to answer? How about question number 6: What is this person's race? The first choice is White, the only White people I have seen are albinos. We have mixed marriages in our family with children, how could they answer this question and what difference would it make anyway? America is a melting pot for the races. What are they looking for with questions like this? Is it anybody business how many vehicles are kept at this house? If they want to know the electric bill, why don't they talk to the utility company? I believe the people that receive Food Stamps would not be willing to share that information. Do they seriously think that if someone is living in a rental without paying rent they would admit it. Then they want you to do an appraisal of your home! I guess when people fill out all the questions about expenses they may realize that they are in over their heads!

For a family of four, there are 213 very personal questions on the form. And my favorite question is number 47 for each person, What was your income and where did it come from. I bet the IRS would love to get their hands on this one. Make a mistake here and guess who will be knocking at your door next.

I usually discard all mail addressed to RESIDENT, I guess I should have discarded this unopened and then I would have not wasted all this time looking into the American Community Survey. Even if they are on the up and up, who is to say that someone within the organization is not. And who even trusts Government now days. All information is released to the public after 75 years.

After April 1^st I will set down with a census taker and try to answer some of the questions they ask, provided they don't get too personal.

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hubertcrowell@comcast.net