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It’s that time of decade again…
By Brian | March 17, 2010 | Share on Facebook
That’s right, boys & girls – it’s CENSUS time! I’ve seen all the ads telling me how important it is that I fill out the census, but I didn’t know this until I got the envelope:
Required by law? Really? I wonder what the penalty is. And given that the letter is addressed to “Resident,” I wonder how they find me if I don’t fill it out. I mean, isn’t identifying me and the members of my household the whole point? If they show up to arrest me, haven’t they conclusively proven that they don’t need me to fill it out?
You heard it here first, folks – We need Census Law Reform!
Topics: Random Acts of Blogging | 5 Comments »
And yes, required by law. The census is how our government, for quite some time now, has interpreted what it is required to do in a little document called the constitution.
And I know you’re being facetious, but there have been HUGE political arguments in DC over how to run the census – right there, that should show you it really does matter, with so many different groups so deeply vested in the outcome.
I returned my form in 2000 but was still selected to be interviewed in person. The census taker was carrying a Newton — and this was several years after the Newton’s heyday. I wonder what they’re using this year.
As for “required by law,” I was being facetious. Kidding aside, I know that the government is required by law to conduct a census and that the census affects things like voting districts, number of House seats per state, etc. (hence the DC squabbling over how it’s done), but I didn’t know that citizens were required to fill it out. I’m a bit surprised we don’t have the right to remain uncounted if we so choose…
@Jeff – according to the never-wrong Wikipedia, the last Newton model (the MessagePad 2100) was discontinued in February of 1998. So yeah – wow – these guys weren’t exactly bleeding edge. If Apple still has the government contract, though, they could (should?) give them all iPads this time around…
The Census Bureau is now vesting less in the decennial census, which is now mostly about congressional districts, and more in other kinds of surveys that they can tailor to the kind of data they are after. There’s one survey, for example, on crime that is connected (like the decennial, I guess) to your address. When we bought this house five years ago, we inherited its participation in this census survey. Every six months for a few years they would call and ask me about whether I’d been victim of or witness to any crimes at home, work, etc. The best I could come up with was that one Halloween we weren’t sure if a jack-o-lantern got vandalized or if it was just the deer.
If they follow a traditional path, I’ll have two kids in college and one GRADUATED when the next census rolls around. Wow. Jeff complaining that his Masters could drive didn’t make me feel old, but that sort of does . . . I’m having a hard enough time with the idea that he’s starting high school in the fall!
As for the civics lesson, it’s more about why we got the form and why we have to fill it out – not so much what they want to know about us. I think the kids will find that part fascinating…
Maybe we’ll let them fill in the info on Person #3 and Person #4. (supervised, of course…)
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