Census Bureau to Test Phone-In Response

AP via Lycos.com ^ | 01/16/2003

[GeneD]

The Census Bureau wants to know whether response to the census would improve if people could call in their answers rather than mail back questionnaires.

The phone-in option will be offered as part of a test survey to be mailed by the bureau in two weeks to 250,000 homes nationwide, the bureau said Thursday. Also being tested are changes to questions asked about someone's background, including the deletion of the "some other race" category as a response to a question about race and ethnicity.

Results of the test, due out next year, will be used to help prepare for the 2010 head count.

At the beginning of each decade, every home receives a census form that asks eight questions on basic topics like age, race and homeownership. The bureau traditionally relies on people to mail those forms back.

But despite a massive outreach and advertising campaign, the share of occupied homes that returned a form was 74 percent in 2000, unchanged from 1990. The bureau hired 440,000 temporary workers to knock on the doors of about 42 million households that did not initially return a form.

Bureau officials want to know if giving people the option to answer census questions by phone using computerized voice recognition technology will boost the initial response and cut down on the door-to-door follow-up operation, which cost $1.4 billion. That was more than 20 percent of the total cost of the 2000 census, according to a report last year by the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm.

Getting people to respond via phone may also slash costs associated with hiring staff and buying machinery to process mailed-back forms, said Pristine Jay Wait, associate census director.

This month's test will also promote the Internet as a way for people to respond. Internet filing was first offered in 2000, but only 59,000 took advantage of the option, which the bureau did not promote then because of concerns the information was not safe from hackers, Wait said Thursday.

In response to the question, "What is your race?", nearly 15.4 million people, or 5 percent of the population in 2000, checked off "some other race."

Another question asks if someone is of Hispanic ethnicity. The federal government considers "Hispanic" an ethnicity instead of a race, so people of Hispanic ethnicity can be of any race.

Of the people who identified with "some other race," 14.9 million were Hispanic. Wait said the bureau wants to determine if deleting the "some other race" category reduces confusion that many Latinos had about how to identify themselves.

There are five other single-race categories: white, black, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander. In addition, 2000 was the first year that the government allowed people to check off more than one box, increasing the number of possible race categories to 63

Marisa Deem, legal counsel for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said she prefers that the category remain an option.

"Within the Latino community, there are a lot of mixed views," she said. "Many people feel their identity does not match up with traditional race categories."

Federal law requires the government to redistribute seats in the House every 10 years based on population shifts detected in the census. Statistics on race and ethnicity are collected to help the government make sure that civil and voting rights laws are not being violated.

Any changes to the census must ultimately be approved by Congress.

___

On the Net:

Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov

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[hsmomx3]

I don't think this will fly. Who wants to sit there and punch in numbers and wait for the next question. A waste of time.

[nygoose]

The reason I would not reply is that I don't want anything to do with any kind of government. Government in all forms in this country is only interested in benefiting and perpetuating itself. Until that changes I have no interest in helping it in any way.

[AFreeBird]

Who wants to sit there and punch in numbers and wait for the next question. A waste of time.

Not to mention the only question I answer, is the only real question required by the Constitution. In my case the answer is: 2. That's how many people live at my domicile.

In 2000 I had one of the temp weenies come up and start to ask me questions. I answered: "Two People live here." She'd ask another question and I'd respond: "Two people live here." After a couple of more questions she got the message and left.

[DumpsterDiver]

... increasing the number of possible race categories to 63.

Good grief! (I've got dibs on being race #34.)

[DJ Frisat]

I've received two rather bulky envelopes from the Census Bureau lately, each of them stamped, menacingly - "Your response is required by law."

During the last census, I answered only the question dealing with the number of people living here, which is what is meant by the word "enumerate." I don't know if this is a follow-up to that or not, and I don't care. They will get nothing further from me. And when they ask me why, in addition to the fact that the Constitution only authorizes a count, I will tell them it is because they have a history of sharing this "confidential" information with other branches of gov't, and have in fact, admitted as much. Not to mention that this is 2003, not a census year.

When the census was being taken a couple of years ago, I remember seeing posts here which pointed to a website containing some questions which legally could be demanded of census workers. Can anybody help me locate the document which contained these questions?

[YOMO]

I think that is discrimatory against homeless people who don't have phone service to their hovels. Oh excuse me they can use their cell phones. NEVER MIND!