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A record number of U.S. counties -- more than 1 in 3 -- are now dying off, hit by an aging population and weakened local economies that are spurring young adults to seek jobs and build families elsewhere. New 2012 census estimates released Thursday highlight the population shifts as the U.S. encounters its most sluggish growth levels since the Great Depression. The areas of natural decrease stretch from industrial areas near Pittsburgh and Cleveland to the vineyards outside San Francisco to the rural areas of east Texas and the Great Plains. A common theme is a waning local economy, such...

WASHINGTON — After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping its use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in surveys. Instead of the term that came into use during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use the more modern labels "black" or "African-American". The change will take effect next year when the Census Bureau distributes its annual American Community Survey to more than 3.5 million U.S. households, Nicholas Jones, chief of the bureau's racial statistics branch, said in an interview.

I received this in the mail the other day. The front of the envelope reads: "U.S. Census Bureau Form Enclosed. YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW. Please complete and return by February 12, 2013. I knew the Census is part of the Constitution but a business census? They have pages and pages of forms they want filled out. They want to know how many employees, all my financial numbers, (sales and types services and products offered). First, is this Constitutional? Second, doesn't the IRS have most of this information already?

PHOENIX -- Members of the Independent Redistricting Commission want a federal court to block them from being questioned about the legislative maps they drew. In legal papers filed in U.S. District Court, attorneys for the five commissioners said their actions are protected by "legislative privilege," a legal concept that generally prevents lawmakers from being questioned or sued about how they reached a decision. And they want a three-judge panel hearing the case to preclude lawyers for the challengers, from being allowed to ask them about it in pretrial depositions. But Joe Kanefield, one of the commission's attorneys, said this is...

Islam is the fastest growing religion in England and Wales, according to new census data. The number of people identifying with no religion nearly doubled over the last decade while the percentage of people who call themselves Christians has dropped to 59 percent, down from 72 percent 10 years ago. The Muslim Council of Britain was pleased with the new data, saying Muslims were playing a “significant part in increasing diversity in Britain.” Of the roughly 56.07 million people counted in the census, 33.24 million described themselves as “Christian” while 2.7 million identified as Muslims, an increase from 3.0 percent...

There has been a huge 13 percent drop in the number of people in Britain identifying themselves as Christian, according to new data released from the 2011 Census. The shocking statistics reveal that the number of Christians has fallen from 37 million to 33 million since 2001. Christians now make up only 59 percent of the population, as opposed to 72 percent in 2001. Meanwhile, the number of Muslims has risen from 1.5 million to 2.7 million - or 5 percent of the population - while the number of people describing themselves as having no religion rose by 10 percent...

Five of the Top 10 wealthiest counties in the United States are in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area--within commuting distance for the thousands of federal government workers, lobbyists, lawyers, defense contractors, think-tank experts and political operatives who work in and around the nation’s capital. The five counties have median household incomes that are roughly double the national median of $50,502. Loudoun County, Va., which lies to the north and west of the District of Columbia, topped the list in 2011, with a median family income of $119,525, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE),...

White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2043, according to new census projections, part of a historic shift that is already reshaping the nation's schools, workforce and electorate. The official projection, released Wednesday by the Census Bureau, now places the tipping point for the white majority a year later than previous estimates, which were made before the impact of the recent economic downturn was fully known. America continues to grow and become more diverse due to higher birth rates among minorities, particularly for Hispanics who entered the U.S. at the height of the immigration boom...

As the din of America’s falling headfirst over the fiscal cliff reverberates across the nation, the Obama administration is quietly killing a key economic metric that tells how, and how many, people are voting with their feet. Since 1991 the Internal Revenue Service has been compiling statistics on filers’ addresses, which the agency’s Statistics of Income division uses to show who is moving into and out of every county and state in the nation. As you’d expect, the IRS also knows the aggregate income levels of those who move. So the movements of the most fundamental productive components of the...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) – As President Barack Obama is set to begin his second term, new statistics on America’s poverty rate indicate that nearly 50 million Americans, more than 16 percent of the population, are struggling to survive. New figures released by the Census Bureau this week found a spike in poverty numbers last year, going from 49 million in 2010 to 49.7 million last year. The numbers may come as a surprise to Congress, which estimated in September that the poverty rate would drop to 46.2 million. One of the most startling findings showed that almost 20 percent of American...

Barack Obama is set to begin his second term, new statistics on America’s poverty rate indicate that nearly 50 million Americans, more than 16 percent of the population, are struggling to survive. New figures released by the Census Bureau this week found a spike in poverty numbers last year, going from 49 million in 2010 to 49.7 million last year. The numbers may come as a surprise to Congress, which estimated in September that the poverty rate would drop to 46.2 million.

The U.S. Census, always seeking ways to go above and beyond its constitutional role of counting the number of people in the United States, may be planning to ask questions regarding sexual orientation in the 2020 Census community survey.

Has anyone else received this survey in the mail in the last month?Allegedly it's from the census bureau and dept of commerce. The form asks very intrusive personal questions such as: "What time do you go to work? What time do you return from work? How much income do you earn?". I had never heard of this survey before so I didn't respond. A stranger showed up at my door and has left a couple of notes asking me to contact him to complete the survey. Get this - this alleged Government worker even contacted my HOA's Management Co and...

If President Obama wins reelection by three or four Electoral College votes next month, the reason may be simple: noncitizens, mostly immigrants, who don’t have the right to vote. No, I’m not talking about his immigration policy or his popularity with Latinos. Nor does this have anything to do with voter fraud. Rather, an Obama victory could hinge on a quirk in the Constitution that gives noncitizens, a group that includes illegal immigrants and legal permanent residents, a say in electing the president of the United States. As required by Article I and the Fourteenth Amendment, the decennial census, which...

What does it mean to say that 46.2 million Americans live in “poverty”? Yesterday morning, the U.S. Bureau of the Census released its annual report on income and poverty, saying that some 46.2 million Americans –15 percent of the population — were poor in 2011. The poverty rate did not fall from the prior year but remained at a near record high, the agency said. The rise in poverty from 36.4 million in 2006 to 46.2 million in 2011 was due initially to the recession and now to the failure of the Obama administration to restore jobs in the economy....

Oh joy. We received our 2012 "American Community Survey" this week, the gazillion page long form that government experts assure me will take only 38 minutes to fill out. Below are the samples of the extremely obnoxious questions on the current form (courtesy of RyanUS at DemocratUnderground who complained about this government intrusion in his life!). I'm giving them the basics and expect to be harrassed the next six weeks until they finally go away.

Why are we getting a long-form census right NOW?? I filled out a census form two years ago. This thing is incredible! It's 28 pages long. It's asking some pretty invasive questions (how much my husband earns, to describe his duties at work, what time he leaves for work, how many times we've been married). The income section is as detailed as a tax return! If I used these figures, I could redo last year's tax return - and that is no exaggeration! Heck, I'd have to pull out last year's tax return to answer these questions. And why am...

With more than half the population being a non-white 55.2 percent, Texas joins New Mexico, California, Hawaii, and Washington D.C. with a "majority-minority" status, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Majority-minority is a legal term used to describe a U.S. state that has a racial composition of less than 50 percent white. The Census Bureau defines individuals who are considered 'white' as non-Hispanics who have family origins in Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.

A decennial census of U.S. religions in America was released Tuesday by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB). The results show a dramatic increase in the number of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, and Muslims, a modest increase in the number of evangelical Protestants, and a drop in the number of Catholics and mainline Protestants. Muslims saw the greatest growth rate among the five main religious groups studied. Their numbers increased by 66.7 percent in the 2010 census from a decade earlier. Latter-day Saints saw the next highest growth at 45.5 percent, followed by evangelical Protestants at only...

Several weeks ago I received a letter addressed to "Resident." Inside was a 28-page American Community Survey form in which I was supposed to reveal to the government every detail about my life. Today, "Resident" received it again along with a threatening letter requiring me to complete the survey. I intend to chuck this one, too. Has anyone else had this experience?